The Truthful Lie
by Darkinyron
Summary: Tired of only getting 23 days to eat, the Creeper seeks his freedom from the curse. He'll do anything to escape it, but he has to pay a price . . . Gore and sexual content.
1. Captive

**The Truthful Lie**  
**By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus (formerly Darkinyron)**

**Disclaimer:** I do not claim ownership over the Jeepers Creepers movies, or the characters, settings, plots, etc…as much as I wish I did. It all belongs to Victor Salva. This is simply a story that I am writing for fun. However, I do own the original characters that appear in this story, so if you wish to use them, you must ask me first.

Please _review_ if you find yourself reading! I cannot possibly know how anyone feels about this if they just up and leave. If you like the story, but feel there are problem areas, please let me know! I want to do better in my writing, so criticism is welcome! However, if you do not like the story, do not flame me. Tell me why if you want, then move along and we can both be happy that way.

**This story, up to chapter eight, has been rewritten. There are no dramatic changes, but there are a few new scenes, and the general writing has been fixed so that it is, uhh…more "pleasing" on the eyes.**

Anyways, enjoy.

**Chapter 1 – Captive **

THE PONDERING HAD started again, memories leaking like a loose faucet into her mind. For some reason, the psychic's face kept appearing in her nightmares, always with that same sweet yet pitiful expression plastered on her chubby face. The past would repeat itself once in a while as she slept, but now that spring was around the corner, it reared its ugly head every night, repetitively. Never, over all those years, had she received an answer to that poignant question.

_Are your dreams ever wrong?_

Years ago, after the query had haunted her for long beyond tolerable, Trish had caved into contacting another psychic. The foreign woman that she had found online and called had to the day been the only human to believe her tall tale, and give her the predictions that she needed. Sure, the phone session had been torture in itself, but it had brought answers to some of the hungry questions. Perhaps the psychic's interpretation of Jezelle's dreams had been the most disturbing—for one, she revealed that the dreams _never_ _were_ wrong, and two, Trish really was meant to be the one screaming in the dark that fateful night.

The reading had been such a shock that she had dropped the phone and ultimately the call, shattering it into a million pieces all over the floor. Instead of calling back on her cell, she had buried her face into a pillow and screamed herself to sheer exhaustion, never returning to the website to even leave a review of the conversation. Fear had overcome her, and continued to languish. She was too much of a coward to call the woman back, and she had no problem admitting that fact to herself.

_Why_, then? If that hideous monster had wanted her after all, did he take Darry? If he thought about eating them both, why did he not come back, or take her with him? No matter how hard she drilled her brain to rationalise it, it would never complete the process and left her hanging. Nevertheless, she knew he'd be back. He'd probably find her little cabin located on the East 9 itself and strut his ugly ass right in it, uninvited.

_Let him try…I may be older, but I'm not going to give him the satisfaction he wants._

--

"Hey mom, come listen to this!" Jetseta called from the family living room, her green eyes fixated on the wide-screen television; evening news played an update on the day's important events while others were repeated from the earlier afternoon. It came, depressing as always—somebody found dead here, another missing there. Occasionally a robbery or assault showed up topped off with a lovely weather prediction of heavy thunderstorms from the meteorologist.

"What is it?" Jetseta's mother replied, her voice snapping from the kitchen over the crank of the dishwasher starting.

"It's on the news, mom! I think they found that kid from Creston—the one that mysteriously disappeared from his bed a few nights ago."

The woman stepped into the room, focusing on the female news reporter who was outlining a vicious crime scene, her voice shaking as she covered the story. Slight trepidation crossed her daughter's face, but Trisha—the mother—felt her features become outlined with horror at the words trailing into her ears.

"_Five hours ago, investigators found a body suspected to be that of eleven-year-old Craig Sherman, badly mutilated in the abdomen and stitched back together along the East 9. The police have contacted his parents to come confirm identification; in the mean time, the body has been taken to the Poho County morgue for later examination. At the scene, tire tracks have been found in the mud beside the road, which appear to be from a large vehicle, possibly a semi…" _

"Mom?"

"_...Surprisingly little to no decomposition on the body. Forensic investigators suspect a quick escape by the killer." _

"Mother! Are you all right?" Jetseta snapped with irritation, grabbing her mother's arm lightly and tugging. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Trisha's eyes wavered and her lips clenched as she stared blankly at her daughter's face. "He's back," she whispered, eyes darting around the room as if expecting him to burst through the wall at any moment. "He's back and it's going to hurt even more innocent people!" Her soft voice trailed off along with her vision that seemed to narrow and isolate only the memories of her past.

"What's back? Who? What are you talking about?" Jetseta stood up now, and blocked her mother's vision of the living room's picture window, her face cross and confused.

"It's been twenty-three years and he's come back to eat!"

"This again? The Bogeyman?"

"I…I don't know what he is," Trisha muttered. "But he's back—to eat people."

"Mother!" Anger flew into her as she took Trisha's face in her hands and tilted it to meet her eyes. She yelled at her harshly, like she would to a child crying because of monsters under the bed every night. "Get over your brother, mom! Get over him and the demon creature you said killed him...It's not real! You were in shock when he died...There is no such thing as Batman or demons or aliens or fucking gargoyles!"

"Jetseta!"

"No mother...It's time for you to face reality. You know this murderer is just another fucked up human like you and I who wears a mask. He probably dresses up in some cheap-ass costume like John Wayne Gacy. Those bodies you spoke of are long gone by now. Just because someone sews up their victim's body doesn't mean they are any different from any other cannibal."

"Jetseta..."

"I'm leaving. I have a date with Jeff and I'm not about to let this ruin my night. You take your pills and go to bed. I'm so sick of your wild imagination!"

"Jetseta, wait!" Trisha called as her daughter yanked herself away.

"I said I'm leaving!" Jetseta shouted, emphasising the whirl of her body with a flip of her dark brown hair. "Don't try and stop me with the excuse that Batman is going to kidnap me and take me to his cave."

Trisha sighed as tears streamed down her face, watching her daughter with pleading eyes. "Jetseta, just, be careful," she sniffed, wiping her nose in her sleeve, a habit she had kept since childhood. "Don't do anything stupid. I won't lose another one I love to that beast."

A simple wave off, and the girl was gone, the screen door groaning shut with a painful screech behind her. Jetseta walked to her car with an angry strut as she dialed a number on her portable blue Motorola. She didn't even notice the shadow that briefly crossed over her as she sat herself down in the driver's seat and brought her car to life.

--

It was raining enough to flood basements at the restaurant that Jeff and Jetseta had chosen for their date. Thunder crashed above them as they dined on steak and various delicious side dishes, threatening to cut the power at any moment. They worried not; the flashes of lightning would give them enough time to find the food on their plates. Like they say—it's better in the dark, anyways.

"What's the matter, Jetseta?" Jeff asked quietly. "You've been kind of quiet this evening."

"Oh, it's my mother," she replied, picking at the pile of rice with her decorated fork. "I think she's about to have another nervous breakdown."

"Why? What has she been doing?" he asked through a mouthful of steak. He looked up at her to take a sip of his soda, noticing a tear sliding down her cheek.

"Talking about her brother's death again," she sighed, her voice distant and distracted. "I'm worried about her, really. I don't show it, but I really am. These past few months it's just gotten worse. The doctors can't figure out why she keeps having these odd visions, or why she is so afraid to go outside. When she last went to a doctor's office they said that they assumed it was post traumatic stress, but, she's never been soldier in a war or experienced anything serious enough to cause it." She brushed a thick lock of brown hair out of her face as another tear chased after the other. "I'm worried about her, Jeff. Seriously. She's never told me the full story about her brother's death, but I know it was something terrible. I don't want her condition to get any worse, but even when I do have the patience to try and talk to her, she just rants about that..._thing_ that kidnapped him. I wouldn't be surprised if she finds herself in the psych ward again."

"Has she been taking her medication?" Jeff asked. He was only mildly interested, but looked up with the hopes that his girlfriend would feel otherwise.

"I think so," she replied through crunches of garlic bread, though tears were still trickling down her face, smearing bits makeup under her eyes. "I just wish she could put the past behind her. The pills aren't going to do it for her."

"I know," Jeff said. "But there are a lot of people with mental problems. She's just one of the unfortunate ones."

Jetseta sat back, letting out a defeated breath. She stared at her food with empty eyes. "I just wish I could do something to take her pain away. My brothers are never around to keep her company because of college. My father is always at work and stays at the office as long as he can. I'm the only one there, usually."

"Just let it go for now. Why don't you go wash your face, and we'll get dessert? You deserve something sweet after a rough day." He winked at her; she couldn't help but smile and choke out a tearful laugh.

In the restroom, she set her purse on the mimic marble sink in the lady's room, which was not nearly as elegant as she had expected for such an expensive restaurant. The walls were painted only an attenuated shade of green to cover up what looked to be an older layer of white. One of the four stalls was missing a door while there was a large leak stain in a ceiling board. Disgusted, Jetseta fumbled through the large pocket of her purse and found a tube of mascara. She grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and cleaned her cheeks of the black streaks mixed with her salty tears.

Jetseta didn't notice that the window was open, the curtains used to block out the view of the bathroom being sifted through by the wind. She continued to dab at her face, wiping off the makeup and drying it so she could apply a more appropriate layer. The screen opened, so quietly that she didn't even notice. She looked down to uncap the bottle of mascara...

But never pulled the cap off.

Next thing she knew, Jetseta was on the smelly, tiled floor, pinned face-first against it, panting hard and trying to scream in a panic. Something heavy and strong was on top of her, and the hot stench of bloody breath was pulled into her nose as she gasped.

She found her nerves and flailed her arms violently against the tiles, trying desperately to slap and scratch at the man pinning her to the floor. She brushed his skin with her fingertip—probably an arm—breaking one of her fake nails in the process. The man didn't care, he only sniffed her further, sticking his nose wildly into her strawberry scented hair and down over her ear to her neck, where he snorted and moved to the other side of her face.

"Jeffrey! Help me! Somebody I—!"

"Shut up," the man growled, slapping a leathery claw over her mouth, his voice so old and guttural it didn't even sound human. She looked down, not even trying to free her mouth from his grip; the sight of his hand itself had frozen her body in a dimension of fear. She heard footsteps coming closer to the bathroom and her hope rose with the knowledge that someone, hopefully Jeff, had heard her cries. The man—_whatever_ he was—hoisted her up violently by her hair, her eyelids pulling back with her scalp right when she begged them to close.

He threw himself against the push-open door and continued sniffing, seeming to search for something in her head like a doctor checking a kid for lice. His breath was hot and muggy, smelling of rot like the harvested cabbage fields on a mid-summer day. His claws raked through her curled hair, splitting open the skin of her scalp. She began to cry as he licked the blood off with a tongue as rough as a cat's, her shock mixing with her fear and realisation that she most likely wasn't going to get out of this. There was pounding of fists at the door; the owners of those fists probably heard her muffled whimpers.

"Jetseta! Open up!" Jeff called against the wood barrier; now he threw himself against the door in a last attempt to force it open. It wouldn't budge against the man's dead weight against it.

"What's going on in there?" another male voice called from further back.

"Call 911!" someone else shouted.

The man growled again as his deadly hands raked down her arm, getting tangled a bit in her hair. He ripped the nails out, taking knots with them as he kept hurting her. He snorted again upon the sight of more blood that he himself had summoned, causing Jetseta to wonder just what his intentions were.

Then he whipped her around to face him.

The first thing she saw were the teeth—blood stained fangs as sharp as needles, dripping with a thick, silver saliva that longed for the taste of flesh. Her eyes, which now bulged halfway out of their sockets, shifted up, over the extra flap of tarry skin covering his cheeks, with long crevasses cutting through them. She looked over his pointy nose containing an extra nostril, his glazed eyes, and over his scalp, from his hairless eyebrows to the skinny horns that clung to his greasy black skin. Her mouth dropped and her voice box seemed to fail as her brain kept commanding it to scream itself out. Her breathing hitched and hissed with each passing second, trying to keep up with her rapidly beating heart that had no idea just how lucky it was to still be in her chest.

He glared and shrieked the sound of a pestered animal, the cry so loud it snapped her out of her state of pathetic shock, bringing her larynx back to life. She screamed as loud as she could, no words in particular, but would not stop until she was heard by someone that could actually get to her and help her. The people on the other side of the door banged, throwing themselves violently against the door in desperate attempts to throw the Creeper from his position.

He pushed his face closer to hers; she pulled away, afraid of what he may do. But all he did was sniff some more, blinking and looking over her features, ignoring her tears and noises.

"Please let me go..." she whispered, but it fell on literally old, mostly deaf ears. He continued to examine her body, persisting in his invasive sniffing, especially around her abdomen, as if he was searching for something inside of her like a cancer-sniffing dog.

_My mother really wasn't lying. She really isn't crazy...This has to be the creature that killed her brother, twenty-three years ago. This must be the Bogeyman, or whatever...This...devil... _

His eyes shot up as she completed the thought, dragon wings flaring to his sides from out of nowhere. She squirmed again, seeming to irritate the being further, but he simply rolled his eyes with a hiss. He flapped those large wings, which weren't even extended to their full length, and unexpected to her, pushed himself off of the door, holding her around the waist and shot through the window.

The last thing Jetseta heard was Jeff screaming her name into the evening breeze, and then the ear pounding pressure from ascending rapidly into the air, and the beating of those great wings carrying her into oblivion.

--

A throbbing migraine was raging behind Jetseta's eyes when she awoke. What had it been caused by? Trauma? Stress? Shock? Fear? The possibilities raced through her tired mind, never ending it seemed as she pushed herself up onto her knees and elbows. She opened her eyes, despite the pain that resulted just from shifting their position in her head to look around. It was dark—something she'd soon be thankful for—so she had to squint to make out shapes and shadows. The room smelled like an ancient morgue, ten times worse than the breath of the creature that had abducted her that evening.

Or was it still the same day, even? There was no light, no evidence of sun or moonshine. The surface she was rested on— thin steel it seemed—was cold and wet with dirty, sitting water. Her clothes were soiled and sticky, but at least she didn't feel any serious wounds on herself that would indicate the liquid to be blood. There was no sound, other than her faint breathing, rain, and the ticking of a tall clock somewhere on the other side of the room.

_Where am I?_ she asked herself, mentally. Her eyes adjusted slightly and she looked around. The place was dank, dripping water from the ceilings which explained the pitter-patter of rain she had heard. The table she was on seemed like some sort of examination table, sort of like the kind used for autopsies. There were machines—lots of them that gave the impression that a lot of slaughtering had taken place here.

Sitting up, Jetseta held her forehead and gazed around again to observe her surroundings. Cool water trickled over her head; had it not been for the headache she would have been desperate to find a dry spot, but the leak was keeping her temperature low. She stepped off the table and onto the floor, realising that she had been stripped of shoes and was standing in a puddle on a cold, stone floor.

_Now what? I have to get out of here!_

Jetseta turned and looked for a hallway, or anything, that could give her hope of escape before that thing could come back to claim her. But right as she neared the corner, she head that raspy breathing, faint as it may have been, coming from down the hall. The creature apparently hadn't left at all, but what was he doing? She looked down and through a row of machines to find him sitting on a high stool, carving into something white with a dagger. Hunched on the floor beside him, a man was passed out.

He had taken all his robes off, and his back was to her for the most part, his wings hanging limply from his back with a tail of stringy, white hair between them. He grumbled quietly as he worked, focusing fully on his task to prevent any error to whatever project he was working on. Even the raining ceiling didn't seem to bother him, despite how drenched his skin was. She noticed though, that something didn't seem right with him. A large, dusty stab wound gaped from his lumbar spine, and he didn't look at all comfortable on his chair.

She continued to watch for a few minutes, silently pondering how she would attempt to get past him. The creature continued his work, either ignoring her or not picking up her scent at all. It didn't take long for the victim at his feet to start groaning and rubbing his teary eyes; before he could get them adjusted to the dim light he had been pulled up and thrown forcibly onto the table by his neck. He screamed, an incessant noise resembling a little girl's reaction to a tiny spider on the wall. This was definitely not a harmless spider, so the scream _should_ have been something a bit more intimidating.

A wretched snap to the side of the man's neck silenced him; it was then that Jetseta noticed why the Creeper had been sitting so strangely. His legs and wings were completely useless as he pulled himself on top of the man with his arms, sniffing and snorting in his face before he could even get himself up. Jetseta tried to look away, knowing just how macabre this was going to become. Her own nerves paralysed themselves, freezing her into that dead stare of both terror and curiosity.

After the invasive snuffling session, the Creeper flipped the man onto his stomach and dug his teeth into his neck, clenching his fangs tightly around his vertebral column before yanking on them. Another snap echoed across the room, resulting in the victim's excruciating death in an instant. Jetseta cried, frantically wiping the tears into her cloths—anything to prevent him from smelling her and abandoning _that_ victim, for now.

A few careful tugs on the bones separated them, each with a loud _crack_ as ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and ribs were fractured. Swallowing the cervical vertebrae was like popping pills for him, and he carved a long line down the rest of the man's back with an ivory stiletto, exposing the larger bones down to his coccyx. He plucked them out with his fingers, snapping them loudly and snickering all the while. He set them all down on the table until every last bone had been carefully removed, then he pushed the body back onto the floor. The dead weight hit the puddle beneath it with a sickening _thud_ and _splash._

The Creeper seemed amused with his snack. A large, stringy nerve dangled from one of the vertebrae, which he grabbed with his tongue and sucked out like a spaghetti noodle. It took everything Jetseta had to keep her guts silent, for they threatened to hurl at any moment. Her fear kept her silently paralysed, for the moment. She continued to watch the appalling scene unfold like in a horror movie—her mouth agape with her forehead contorted into a mess of thick wrinkles. Her captor proceeded to lick each bone like a lollypop; he licked it clean as if trying to find the chocolate wad in the middle, which in this case, was the cerebral-spinal fluid. Only after licking it all out would he throw it into his mouth and swallow it whole. The muscles in his throat contorted painfully as he gulped it down. With each consumed morsel, a little more of his feeling came back. As he devoured the sacrum, he perched himself up on the edge of the table and began licking the blood off of its surface.

After a while he calmed down and hoisted the man's body back up onto the table. The victim's face was left in a permanent, silent scream. By now, Jetseta couldn't look anymore. She fell to her knees, willing her shaken body to calm itself. Her fight-or-flight responses soon kicked in with the haunting images acting as encouragement for her to get the hell out of there.

Jetseta's lip curled as she snuck into the room and eyed the opposite side, tiptoeing along the wall behind her captor. She tried to see past the numerous junky pieces of metal and tables that littered the floor, but from what she could tell, the only other exit was all the way on the other side. Could she make it, if she possibly stayed low and quiet behind objects or in shadows?

Her question was answered when the creature stood up and turned, noticing her. His head tilted to the side a bit, as if wondering where she had come from, and all three of his nostrils flared to catch her scent. Fear rose up the girl's oesophagus, along with bile, at the site of her captor. He grinned.

"Who...who are you?" she asked dumbly, throwing her head in every direction in a panic, looking for a closer escape. The question didn't just seem stupid, it _was_ stupid.

He snorted and turned around to grab the white dagger from his table. It was a hand-carved knife made of bone, decorated to his liking and painted over with a shiny sealing chemical. Jetseta eyed it cautiously, looking up and down the wavy blade with its crooked edges.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" she asked, her voice the whisper of a ghost. "You're going to murder me and eat a part of me and stitch me back together, aren't you? _Aren't you!_"

"Child, you speak too much," the Creeper answered tonelessly. His voice sounded even more daunting than before.

"Just answer me, you worthless piece of shit!"

"I want something from you."

"Well, no shit." Jetseta snapped now, anger overriding her fear, but not completely destroying it. The Creeper raised a hairless eyebrow, amused. He twisted the knife between his fingers with the expert dexterity of a ninja and walked up to her.

But against all odds, he set the knife down beside him, just out of her reach. He was teasing her, and she knew it.

"Please, just...just do it fast. I don't want to suffer anymore than your other victims have."

"Human, you will not die…yet," he murmured, his breathing picking up as if he were exercising. He was searching for her fear, trying to pick it out in the haze of anger and any other emotional barriers she may have set up. "I have another use for you."

"Excuse me, Satan, but I am _not_ your slave!"

"Quite a temper you have, little one." The Creeper smirked and wiped a sticky substance from his chin, which Jetseta noticed to be blood in the dim light coming from a ceiling crack. "Just like your mother. You just don't smell as good as _she_ did."

Jetseta glared; if looks could kill, she wondered if this thing would die. "Yes, maybe that _is_ where I get my resistance from, but don't think I don't know what you're getting at. I'm _not_ stupid!"

"I know, child. You are strong…That is why I picked you for this. Had your mother been any younger, I would have just used her."

"For _what_?"

The Creeper pressed against her, his breath hot and erratic. His notorious nasal examination began, starting in her hair as usual as he bent over her. She froze, afraid of both trying to escape and remaining against the wall at the same time. The door seemed so close, yet so far away. Just a quick break for it and she would be in the other room in the back—an area which possibly held an escape into the outside world. Yet it would take so long to get there, those several metres against the Creeper's split-second reactions.

"Please, leave me alone," Jetseta whined, her voice becoming as frail as settled snow under feet. "I've done nothing to you...Leave my family and I alone!"

A snort escaped him, but other than that he paid her voice no attention. His eyes fluttered shut and he sucked in her scent as if he were trying to intoxicate himself with a drug. His hands travelled up her arms to her shoulders where he gripped her roughly with his nails digging into her flesh, summoning a bit of blood beneath them. She pushed against his chest with her hands, hoping to get at least the reek out of her face. It did nothing; if anything, the Creeper liked it, and pressed against her further.

"Get…off of me!" Jetseta's voice had returned, as well as her strength as she squirmed between the Creeper and the wall. She thrashed as if there was no tomorrow, trying to get under his grip to run.

He was too strong. Worse yet, he seemed to like that even more.

The Creeper firmly held her there and licked a cold trail down the side of her face with the tip of his slimy, filthy tongue. He savoured her taste, taking his time as he moved down her neck, following his hands that travelled down her breasts and over her abdomen, and back up again. His eyes snapped open, glazed with not only cataracts but the overpowering clout of lust.

Her eyes begged him to stop. His eyes begged her to relax and let him.

The Creeper tore at his victim's jeans, easily slicing through the thick fabric with those sharp talons. He looked down; Jetseta's eyes followed him.

Jetseta noticed her captor's obvious need as his sickening member nudged her; the Creeper noticed the shaking and the fear of his new slave, but also...another power that seemed to be taking over her mind. They both froze. Their eyes met.

Yes, he had chosen his bitch well. She was a strong female in her prime, unable to control her body's needs and wishes, no matter what the hell she was staring at.

Lust filled Jetseta's eyes and nerves, while her mind was screaming at her to fight and save herself. Then again, though she did not consciously think it, perhaps at that point only survival mattered. Her animal instincts may get her through it…as safely and easily as it could possibly end up in a situation such as this.

The opposites stared at each other for a long moment—the master and his slave, the monster and the human, the predator and his prey…

She struggled again, even though she had all ready lost.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	2. Pain and Pleasure

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

Gore warning, for you losers with weak stomachs. Be gone, kiddies!

**Chapter 2 — Pain and Pleasure**

THE CLOCK READ 1:07 AM when headlights flashed into the driveway. Throwing her blankets off in an apprehensive panic, Trisha flipped around in her armchair and opened the curtain of her living room window. It was Jeff's little truck, and from the looks of it he was alone out there. The light inside the cab showed no other silhouettes in the leather seats.

"Oh no," Trisha thought aloud as she rushed to her door. "Something's wrong. Where is her car? Where is _she_?"

The frantic pounding on the front door startled a shriek out of her, and for a moment she stared blankly at the locks, afraid of who or what may be on the other side of the door. For all she knew, the Creeper could have taken both of them and come back for her, posing as a normal human in a cloak as he had in the past. Memories flooded her mind like a river of blood, but she pushed them away; this was not the time to dwell in the shadows of the past. She snapped out of her temporary state of fear and whipped the door open.

"Jeffrey!" she breathed, the fear fleeing as she placed a hand over her chest. "Come inside, before it gets you!"

"Trish! Help me…I can't find her," he replied, stepping in and drying rain off of his face with a sleeve. "One minute she was heading off to the bathroom, next thing I hear her screaming for help. I tried to get in, I'm so sorry, I tried."

"Just tell me what happened!" she yelled, tears filling her eyes as fear overwhelmed her mental tolerance.

"Like I said, I was just waiting for her to come back when she started screaming my name. That man had her and was barricading the door with his body. Damn, he was fucking heavy. There were three of us beating on that door and it wouldn't budge until he ran out the window."

"Did you call the police? Go looking for her?"

"We did, but there were no witnesses. No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing…" Jeff sighed heavily, catching a warm breath from inside the house, realising that he had been holding it the whole time. "I know this is all my fault. I should have been more protective. She told me everything about the argument you and her had, and I just shrugged it off like nothing. I had no idea that there was really a serial killer out there."

"Don't say that! We don't have time for this now. We have to go looking for her. It's our only hope…He may have spared her so far."

"What? How do you know—?"

"You know what I'm talking about! Get in the truck…I'm going with you."

Trisha turned and trotted into the kitchen to blow her nose; at that moment one of Jetseta's brothers emerged from his bedroom, rubbing the back of his head and yawning.

"What's going on?" he asked groggily. "What's all the noise for?"

"Jetseta's missing," Trisha replied quickly, coming back with her tiny purse. "Jeff and I are going to go look for her."

"This again?" the teenager whined. "Mom, she runs away all the time…"

"Not this time," she sighed. "She's in serious danger...She needs our help. If she shows up here, or you hear anything from her, call my cell phone."

They left the boy standing in the hallway, confused to ponder the hurried conversation on his own. He shook his head, figuring it was only his mother's wild imagination acting up again, and headed back off to bed, worried about nothing. To him, Jetseta was just as crazy as their mother, and an attention-seeking bitch. Why waste any energy on someone like _that_?"

--

Jetseta's state of mind had fallen into shambled pile before the worst part even began. She no longer cried as the creature used her for his selfish desires. She refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing her fear and misery. Though she could not stop the supernatural scent of fear that was radiating from her, but she could at least stifle what she did have control over. Being the rebel that she was, she wanted desperately to piss him off.

_They say when you piss a serial killer off, they become confused and lose their grip because you've managed to accomplish what they never expected or wanted. They say that when you push aside your fear and stand up to them, they don't know what to do anymore. Can I pull it off? Can I be strong and—_

Before she even felt the pain, the tearing of live flesh flew into Jetseta's ears followed by the sensation that her entire pelvis was being ripped apart. Her larynx and bones screamed, her feminine places already mutilated by…what, bone? Horns? She had no time to consider; the rending shrieks and spasms of pain shot through her, finally bringing their essence to life under the monster's wrath. She felt a hot rush of blood escaping her torn vagina, and another slash—sounding like the tearing of wet cardboard—as the man raping her yanked himself out and grunted. She didn't need her eyes to know that blood was gushing out of her like water from a hemorrhaged pipe. The burning, not even calmed by her endorphins' futile attempts to relax her body, shot up into her higher abdomen as he tore through her again, this time holding there as if waiting for a reaction.

She couldn't hear the screams that she had promised herself to control. Her fingers gripped against the wall with nothing to curl around or dig into. She wished she had something, _anything_, to bite her teeth into to concentrate the pain into something else. The Creeper may as well have been using that cold dagger on her, for that is what it felt like. For all she knew, maybe it was. There had to be some form of spikes on his penis, but whatever they were, she didn't care. She needed to survive, but she knew that the only way she could was to endure this.

If she was lucky, maybe he'd give her something afterwards so she wouldn't bleed to death.

Her mind seemed to black out as he continued, taking her against the wall as if she were just another one of his dead corpses. For all she knew, he probably did rape his victims while they were in a state of rigor mortis. She felt like a rag doll, all tattered and useless, ready to be thrown away when there was simply nothing left. Her physical dilapidation didn't seem capable of getting much worse.

Jetseta just kept her eyes shut, willing away the tears as she bit into her lip, not even noticing the blood that had begun to trickle from beneath her teeth. The Creeper's heated growls came to her ears in place of screams, growing quieter as her body fell into and out of consciousness. She didn't want to stay awake anymore, no matter what the ending of this would be. Her body didn't care. It fought with itself, with the Creeper's wet and throbbing dick, and with her brain to keep her aware of her situation, so that she wouldn't pass out. It was stubborn; it couldn't grant her this one wish.

He flipped her around, violently, cracking her head against the wall. Her body finally quit. She fainted, falling limp just as her captor stuffed himself back inside her in full climax. His skull-wings flared fully and he snarled with covetousness. His warped head tilted back and his eyes closed while he finished, his howls dying only as he ran out of air.

The Creeper held himself there, catching his breath with overused lungs for a few moments; all the time his victim remained unconscious but at least alive. He pulled out and let her crumple into a heap of bloody flesh as he relaxed. His cloak waited nearby, but he didn't bother with it, yet. He waited for the girl to open her eyes before leaving, and after about twenty or so minutes, she did.

It seemed like hours had gone by when Jetseta's body allowed the light to seep back into her eyes. She blinked, staring at the floor for a while before any state of mind returned. She was too sore to move, too tired to conjecture about the pain between her legs and what had happened. It was all she could do to look around without craning her neck to follow her sight.

She saw the silhouette of her attacker kneel down in front of her, but he did nothing else for a while. His breathing was quiet but difficult; it told her that they hadn't been there long as well as that life still lingered in her body. She felt trapped inside of it. She wanted out, to just pass on from this hell to the next available spot of hope. In here, she had none.

"Can you get up?" he croaked.

"No," she mouthed, no sound able to escape with all her exhaustion.

A slight snarl followed some time later. She remembered that he was still semi-blind with those cataracts and probably hadn't noticed her response at all. He picked her up in the same manner he had used on his previous victim, carried her over to one of the tables, and plopped her onto it with ease. She hissed irately as the pain resurfaced and a fresh, but less intense flow of blood began from her lower half.

She didn't even care that he stood over her and stared at her naked form. Would it do any good to remain embarrassed at this point? She shivered, although the sweltering wounds inside her burnt like a fire. She curled up in a ball, half hoping that she would just fall asleep and die a peaceful death of blood loss. It wouldn't happen, she guessed. The creature had even said it wasn't her time to die, and most serial killers were smart enough to know how much their victims could handle. Fatigue grasped at her and willed her into a painful sleep of terrifying nightmares and dreams of alternate endings to that which would never come.

He waited until Jetseta's breathing became thick with slumber before moving. He pulled his cloak loosely over himself and pocketed the dagger that had been resting on that same table. He then took another robe—a cleaner one—and tossed it over her to stop the shivering. He stood there for a few more minutes to monitor that breathing as if afraid it would arrest at any second. After a while, he decided that she would be stable for now, and walked out of the room, placing his old hat on his head on his way out.

--

It was over three hours later that Jeffrey returned to Trisha's house, the sobbing mother drifting in and out of sleep from her mental fatigue. She stared up at the sky—the moon in particular—with a shotgun in her hand, hoping that she would see that homicidal bat searching for more victims. Shooting it would do no good, she remembered, but she needed to get her anger out on it somehow. Maybe if she were lucky enough she'd blow off one of its wings and make it tumble into a mound of jagged rocks and go splat.

"Will you be okay tonight?" Jeff asked.

"If you could stay with us, I would appreciate it," Trisha replied, not looking at him. "My husband left again…I'd feel safer if we stayed together in a group, the boys and us."

"All right," he agreed softly, parking and shutting off his pickup truck.

Inside, the two teenagers were already waiting, the television playing the news. They shook their heads sadly when asked if they had heard anything, and as Trisha and Jeff removed their spring jackets, the four came together in a tight group-hug and shared their worried sobs.

--

It was a while later, possibly days, when Jetseta woke up. She remained still for a while to just mentally catch up on what had happened, where she was, and what she was doing there. She examined her surroundings and came to the simple conclusion that she had been moved to a new room, one which was much drier and warmer.

She was dressed in a fresh, grey robe that was far too large, but she didn't mind. She was comfortable and alone, and this relieved her for the time being. The pain seemed to have ceased; as she peered into the robe at herself she found that a black goo had been applied inside of her and over her wounds, and the blood was gone. She was numbed below, but didn't complain. She closed it and looked up at the ceiling, half-expecting to see bodies lining the walls like in her mother's tales. There was nothing, just bricks and a sealed skylight at the top. It was daylight out, and Jetseta greeted the sunshine contentedly.

"Good, good, you're awake."

Startled, Jetseta's eyes shot in the direction of a shadowed corner where the Creeper was staring at her. He was matted with blood, as usual, and was chewing on a piece of cartilage as if it were gum.

"Go away," she barked. She shut her eyes tightly with the hopes that eventually she would hear his footsteps fading into another room, but only the opposite occurred as he approached. Her muscles clenched inside and her heart rate elevated, but she wouldn't be afraid anymore. She _had_ to get out of this, to see her family again, to pacify their concerns that undoubtedly had begun.

It was a while before the Creeper stuck his face back against her. He began his ritual smelling of her, concentrating in the same areas of her body that he had before, but at least showing no interest in raping her again, yet. His lip curled several times; when this happened he would linger in that area, sniffing deeper before moving on.

Jetseta was too tired to fight, or even care. It would take her days, maybe weeks to recover fully from the entire mental and physical trauma that this being had put her through. That is, if nothing else happened.

"Can I have some water?" she asked randomly. Her kidnapper didn't seem to expect anymore words out of her this day, and stared blankly for a moment. His eyes were still not replaced, but she noticed a large gaping wound where part of his left shoulder was missing, which wasn't even _bleeding_. It was black and crusty, and as he moved particles of dust evaporated from it and disappeared into the unfiltered air.

He didn't even appear to feel pain as he left and collected a bucket of water for her from another room. He was gone for only a minute or so, for she heard water running but her dry mouth made it out to be an eternity. He returned, carrying that metal bucket in his left hand, and it looked as if the entire arm would rip off at any moment.

"Erm…yah, give me that."

He cocked his head at her as she sat up, but again failed to reply. He set the bucket beside her with a heavy _clank! _and went on sniffing as she reached in and drank some. The water tasted old and hard, full of calcium and other metals. She was too tired and weak to complain; it was all she could do to move her sore body into position just to reach in there.

He growled slightly as he began smelling between her legs, and instinctively she tensed. She didn't want him burying his nose in there especially or _anywhere_ for that matter. Would he rape her again if he was not satisfied with the scent?

For a moment he lingered there, as if trying to locate a hidden aroma and decide what he would think of it. His upper nostril flared open and closed a bit more than it had in the short past she had known him, but it didn't seem to be helping much. Frustrated, or so it seemed, he stood up and walked back out of the room.

--

Later that same night, Jetseta was startled out of another uncomfortable sleep by the raspy, high-pitched screams of bloody murder—_literally_. She sat up and looked around; a few candles had been lit around the room in random places. The bucket of water was still beside her, and as she turned in its direction she saw the Creeper in the back room, right in front of the doorway. A young woman was squirming and crying out desperately for help, but of course, to no avail. Blood began squirting from the back of her chest and went flying across the room as an artery was severed by the same dagger Jetseta had seen earlier.

The Creeper shoved the woman over what looked to be an old car's framing and proceeded to open the wound further. He held her down with an elbow and slowly pulled the skin away, ignoring her screams as if she were already dead. The woman had no more room to squirm, but it didn't matter as her strength grew thin. One of the monster's claws reached in and manually shifted her scapula and ribs aside as if they were simple rubber before gripping a bleeding lung and severing it from her body. He smirked at the blood that sprayed into his face, some even hitting him dead in the eye as he stuck part of it in his mouth. He let it dangle there for a moment, and looked over at Jetseta.

A thin whimper escaped Jetseta's mouth and she stared at the Creeper, standing there looking at her, holding the lung by the pulmonary artery that had come out with it. Tears strolled down her face like waterfalls, and the bile rose from her stomach so fast she didn't even feel it. She dumped all the puke she had, all over the floor so violently she fell off the edge, right into it, taking a few glass bottles with her that were caught in her robes.

She heard the warped laugh of an ancient man behind her, but she knew it was just the aged lungs that could no longer carry much air inside them. His laugh came in fits, sounding like he had advanced emphysema and would fall dead at any moment. She wished he would.

That is until she heard the gurgling...She crawled out of her vomit and stood, staring at him as he swallowed the lung as if it were a spaghetti noodle—it just slid right down his throat. He then dug back into the woman—who was now far dead—and managed to separate the other bleeding lung without creating another slash. He then looked back to Jetseta, whose face had the paled pigment of illness, and wiggled the dead organ at her to create a Jell-O Jigglers effect. The blood that rained onto the floor seemed to only add to it, and for a second she heard Bill Cosby's voice in her head advertising 'A Kid's Favourite Dessert'.

Another need to vomit came, but her empty stomach only wretched a bit of slimy bile that dripped onto the floor as she buckled over. The Creeper downed the other lung and stalked over to her. She heard those heavy black boots and glared up at him.

A sick grin was plastered on his face. She knew what he wanted now. For all she knew, killing that poor woman and tearing her torso apart could have been a turn-on for him. She gasped and backed away, slipping in her own repellent stomach-fluids and falling face first in them.

He hoisted her back up and tossed her over the table, tearing off her robe and his own and proceeded to violate her again.

And again...

...And again.

And she didn't think he'd ever stop.

The amount of blood she assumed she'd lost frightened her more than the rapes, for without the precious fluid she had no chance against this creature.

Blood kept her going…But it wasn't successful in any of the other cases. She found herself begging him to give her the dagger at the end of the night so she could drain the rest of the blood from her wrists. He laughed at her and walked out.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	3. Death Knocking on Your Door

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 3 — Death Knocking on Your Door**

There was something odd about the way the Creeper had been treating Jetseta in the past few days. The violations had abruptly ceased after the incident with the lungs, and now he seemed to be pampering her like a queen. The habitual smelling of her body and hair continued, as expected, but the "care" she received was much more humane than it had been earlier, if it could even be referred to as such. As she lifted her head from a short nap, Jetseta noticed that her water bucket had been refilled and a smaller one had been left by her full of various fruits and vegetables.

"What's this?" she asked herself out loud; the unexpected gift of fresh food baffled her destabilised mind. She stared at the bucket as if it was a million dollars, and suddenly she wondered how she had even survived the battle to this point. Not only had she lost massive amounts of blood, but she had grown disgustingly thin and susceptible to becoming even more infected than she all ready seemed to be. Germs of all sorts flourished in this filthy building, just waiting for the opportune moment to jump into her nostrils or an open slash. And yet somehow, she had stayed alive, and seemed to be doing even better now than she had before. Had it been the black ointment that kept her alive?

Jetseta lunged at the bucket of plants. Her starvation at this point seemed as great as the Creeper's was for human meat, and although she heard his rustling clothes in one of the back rooms she was too indulged in her meal to be afraid or to investigate. Inside she found a few ears of corn, potatoes, some small melons, an apple, tomatoes, carrots, and some various berries. She snatched the apple, brushed off its shiny, dark red hide and sank her teeth into it, ripped a giant piece of the fruit's flesh away and chewed it greedily. It felt like decades since she had savoured the taste of a simple fresh fruit, and her taste buds flared with delight.

"I figured you would be hungry," the Creeper uttered from behind her, his voice raspy but more powerful, as well as heavily accented. She whipped her head around, a scowl all ready plastered on her face to find him grinning with those needles of enamel. She tore another chunk of the apple off and chewed it loudly—anything to displease him, not even wincing as she noticed the preserved body of a teenage boy propped up beside him, his brain and eyes missing. In the Creeper's hand was most of his cranium, its brain sitting upon it like a turkey on a dinner plate. Jetseta's body told her to vomit, but she held it down and just kept eating. The task of holding her sickness down was becoming easier with each killing. It was just like learning to walk, only now she was learning to cope with maimed bodies and the reek of the preservatives injected into them.

She was not going to give him the satisfaction of feeling her fear.

So instead, she watched as he moved behind the boy's body and looked through the mutilated eye sockets at her. He flexed his eyebrows a few times, showing off his new pair of brown eyes which he had stolen from the victim. Jetseta's lip curled; was he trying to _amuse_ her? She looked away and into her bucket, picked out a few blueberries and glanced back, popping them into her mouth.

He winked at her through those eye sockets and laughed. Jetseta simply rolled her eyes and turned away with disgust surging through her blood vessels and tired nerves. At least the boy was all ready done with his suffering, and could move on to the next life, so she didn't have to listen to his cries for mercy and freedom. The silent scream that his mouth was frozen into gave her no doubt that he had indeed vocalised them while death was taking its grip on his life.

_When will this be over, so I can just leave and go home to my family? He HAS to be almost done with his feeding month; I know I've been here over two weeks! God,please, just let there be only a few more days. I'm so tired and sick, how does he expect me to go on? It's amazing the fucking smell hasn't killed me!_

She sat and silently prayed to forces she never believed to exist, even now. If there had been something out there, wouldn't it have given her a sign of hope? No, and there wasn't a doubt in her mind that the dead ones were the same way. She finished her apple quietly as a lone tear trailed down her face and into the fruit's white meat.

_I need to get out of here. Now._

Almost instinctively something told her turn around again; the Creeper was flexing his wings in frustration as he tried to feed a thick piece of string through the eye of a large needle. Could this be her chance? She couldn't just hope to run for the door and be out; he was too just fast and too strong to fight off. She was too weak to attempt any sort of physical battle with the large creature, and with no weapon in her possession, she decided against an attempted escape for the moment.

Then again, hadn't she heard of victims managing miraculous escapes from serial killers? Didn't they always happen when the bloodthirsty maniac was distracted or frustrated, or even tired? Certainly they had, and although it was indeed a rarity, it was possible.

A soft ping entered her ears, and she noticed that the Creeper had dropped his needle. It rolled under the table and disappeared into a shadow that she couldn't penetrate with her eyesight. He growled, tossed the string aside and bent over, right in front of her, to search for the needle under the table.

Disgusted, Jetseta _almost_ ducked away, until a thought crossed her twisting mind. He was totally exposed as he looked upon the tiled floor, picking at large cracks in it and making noises with his claws that seemed an equivalent to nails on a blackboard. Clinging to her robes, Jetseta leapt off of her table. He was only a few feet away, paying no attention to her. A grin crossed her filthy face.

Before she even knew what she had done, a vociferous and high-pitched howl pierced through her ears, forcing her to flinch back to her table. She turned around, eyes bulging, just to see the pathetic form of the Creeper curled into a ball, his eyes clenched tight, the rest of his face contorted into an expression of unfamiliar pain. His claws immediately clenched the sensitive area between his legs that had been kicked and he _bawled_.

"Hah! Take that, bitch!" Jetseta laughed victoriously at the dismal creature, who once struck such fear into her that she cried herself to dehydration. Though now, as tears escaped her eyes, only the feeling of humiliation from the Creeper and amusement from Jetseta herself filled the air.

She broke into a sprint for the door, still laughing and ignoring the fact that her lungs were begging her to stop to replenish her levels of oxygen. But as she made it past the first doorway, and then the second, it seemed to take care of itself, and she just kept running until she found the exit. It was in a room she had never been in, but the building itself was easy to navigate. There was no sign of the winged creature following her as she turned the knob to freedom.

Outside, the sun greeted her, as did a road that was peeking out from behind a mess of pine trees. Looking back only for a second, she darted for it, dodging the trees toward its welcoming arms of asphalt. The deceiving road presented itself as a smooth, easy to run on surface, but it was extremely hot, and wide. It was also deserted.

"Fuck, you just _had_ to be the 9!" Jetseta cursed at the black path, seeing a rusted sign in each direction which indicated east and west. She looked from side to side and craned her neck, but all she could see was an endless corn field stretching from horizon to horizon. She randomly darted left and started to run again. Somewhere in the fields she heard the inauspicious cawing of crows.

--

For some reason, the Creeper never came after her. Surely, she couldn't have injured him _that_ bad; her mother had told her numerous times in her stories that nothing could hurt it for long. Even in normal men, the pain of being kicked where the sun didn't shine was a temporary thing, despite the consequences. So, remembering this, she decided that he simply had more important tasks to attend to. By now, about a half hour after her unexpected escape, she was staggering down the middle of the East 9 to an unknown destination. The heat beat down on her dehydrated body from above and lifted off of the road itself, tiring her further. She wished for water as mirages appeared ahead, and if she had anything underneath those heavy black robes, she would have shed them in a second. She didn't though, and she dealt with them.

She walked for what seemed like days up the East 9, though in reality, it was a little over an hour when she heard an engine slow behind her. She opened her eyes—she had been walking with them closed to block out the bright sunlight—and found that a police car had come to a stop. A bald man opened the door and walked over to her; he squinted and shielded his eyes as he gazed upon her filthy and wrecked body.

"What is your name, Miss? And where are you going?" the officer asked kindly.

"I'm Jetseta Ross," she croaked. The voice that had earlier produced an insane laugh was long dormant again. "I need some help."

The cop blinked a few times, but the young woman walked toward him and leaned her head against his shoulder. It had been so long since she had seen a living human face that she had forgotten just what one looked like. She stayed there as the man spoke into his portable radio, responding to cracked messages that sailed invisibly over the corn fields.

"Yes, she claims to be the missing girl that disappeared about three weeks ago. I'm going to be bringing her in. Please notify her parents and the hospital."

"Copy that," the female voice from the radio replied.

"Do you need medical aid?" the officer inquired.

A cough, but Jetseta smiled a bit. It had been so long since she had smiled that her face hurt to constrict the muscles into just a slight one. "I think I'm all right for now. My injuries are minor. I would like some water, though."

"We're still going to get you to a hospital as soon as possible, ma'am. I'm going to take you to the station. From there, an ambulance should be waiting, or else your parents." The policeman fetched a bottle of spring water and helped her into the back seat of his Chevy, where many people had undoubtedly sat in handcuffs before her. She leaned back and finally took the opportunity to relax after her ordeal. The officer seemed to notice this, for his questions were few and far between as they drove off towards the police station. He didn't even ask her to strap herself in when she laid down across the back seat.

--

Trisha and her family were already waiting at the police station when Jetseta and her uniformed rescuer arrived. Upon seeing her daughter, tears released themselves from her eyes. It was a rare thing to see Patricia cry, but when she did, it was nearly impossible for her to stop. Even under the intimidating robes and caked on layers of dirt and grime that covered her, Trisha recognised Jetseta as if that were how she always appeared. Her friends and family had been right; hope really wouldn't fail them this time.

"Mom!" Jetseta cried, stumbling out of the car towards her family. "Dad! Oh my God, I never thought I would ever see you again!" Cried was perhaps too weak a word to describe her intense enthusiasm; she was just too amazed to see the ones she loved once again. She embraced them, clinging weakly but with enough energy to get her point across. Her parents held her, ignoring how deathly she reeked and how dirty their clothes became. The Creeper didn't exactly provide fresh clothes on a daily basis, after all.

"Jetseta, tell me this isn't a dream. We have been so worried about you, and your mother said you wouldn't be coming home!" Her partially deadbeat father actually smiled, though whether he actually meant it remained a painful mystery.

"Oh Jetseta, we were so scared! We thought we had lost you forever!"

"I'm fine, or, I think," Jetseta mumbled. She was clearly tired, and still afraid, for her eyes were still very alert and her head was on a swivel. "He's still very much alive. I don't feel this is the end."

Another deputy arrived, butting into their conversation to give Jetseta a brief visual inspection. "You're going to have to take her to the hospital. Since she has no life-threatening injuries, we are going to allow you to drive her there by car since our fire department does not have a working ambulance. Another officer will follow you to ensure your safety, since we have a good idea that the perpetrator is still out there."

"Thank you," Jetseta's father said, relieved.

--

Some time later, Jetseta was resting comfortably but silently in a hospital bed as a nurse examined her body. She pressed in various areas, asking Jetseta if it hurt, but rarely received any form of an answer unless it actually _did_ hurt; her pain seemed to focus mostly in her abdomen and vaginal area. The hospital's medical personnel were puzzled by the black ointment between her legs and on her other wounds, but didn't question it. Their sympathies went out to the family that worried about their daughter, as did various promises that they would do all they could to help. Jeffrey arrived late that evening in a state of panic after work, eager to see his battered girlfriend's living face.

"The doctor is going to be in to speak with you in a few minutes," the nurse warned softly. "He'll take you in for a CAT scan and an x-ray."

Jetseta made no response, that is, until Jeffrey burst in through the door, nearly toppling the young Asian nurse on her way out. The woman smiled at the scene of the twenty year old hugging Jetseta before closing the door, giving them a few moments in peace.

"I'm so glad you're alive," Jeff was saying. "I was feeling so guilty; all of this is my fault..."

"Don't say that," Jetseta replied, finally smiling. Bringing her lips into a grin seemed like an almost foreign gesture now. "I missed you. There's nothing you could have done."

He kissed her happily and held her tight. "I'm not going to let that man take you again. You're all mine from now on."

The smile that was so bright and wide at first faded when Jeff looked into his girlfriend's hunter-green eyes. He knew at once, without any explanation, that she hadn't just been battered and starved. Just by the look in her eyes, he read everything.

"He…he…" she burst into tears before she could continue.

"You don't need to say anything," Jeff said. He stroked her hair gently, despite how tangled and filthy it was. From that moment on he silently vowed to himself and to her that he would do whatever he could to protect her for the rest of her life. He was willing to deal with any mental problems that came out of this, just as Trisha's husband had for so many years—even though he had walked out plenty of times due to it.

A quick knock and a chubby bald doctor came in through the doors, a clipboard and pen in hand. He smiled briefly and shut it behind him, sighing as he looked upon his new patient. She could practically smell the pity radiating off of his body as he approached.

"Hello Jetseta. I'm Doctor Martin," the chubby man spoke. "I'm going to be taking care of you tonight."

His patient smiled briefly and clung to her boyfriend. She was scared, but otherwise calm. The large doctor sat down upon his examiner's chair and began to look over her facial appearance, and slowly down her body, making little notes on the loose-leaf paper attached to his clip-board. He did this quickly before replacing it with a medical form, which for now, remained blank.

"The nurse told me you are having some abdominal aching, and some head injuries?" the doctor questioned, more to assure himself that his relayed information had been correct.

"Yes."

"We're going to get you a CT scan for you head, since you may have a concussion."

"I probably do. My head was a basketball more than once." Jetseta didn't even seem to notice her own sarcastic remark. Then again, it probably wasn't cynicism to begin with.

The doctor nodded and began to look at her vaginal wound. Oh how she hated the man's eyes as they widened; to him the black substance probably resembled dried blood more than a primitive ointment. He strapped on a glove and performed a simple examination; the way his face screwed up assured her that he didn't like what he felt.

"I think we may get an ultrasound on your abdomen, Jetseta. I'm worried about any injuries you may have sustained down there."

"So am I," Jetseta whispered as horrible flashbacks from her ordeal replayed themselves. She was staring out the window, spacing out so she could travel to her land of perfection. In the ideal world, nothing would ever occur to result in this level of trauma and disbelief.

Although promising the CAT scan, the doctor first inserted an IV and took a blood sample. Jetseta hardly noticed the needle pricks that were nothing compared to the thorns she had felt inside of her as she was raped by the Creeper. His unforgettable grin flashed by her vision for a moment, so opaque that she could have sworn he had actually been there. Had he? Had the monster just appeared in the window?

Blinking with a gasp, the image was gone. There was nothing more, just the top leaves of a maple tree and stars in the distance. She felt her grip on Jeff's hand tightening, and his reply was a smile and a reminder that everything was going to be okay now.

_Will I be okay now? Is this really over, and if not, what's next? What else do I have to endure? Even though I'm away from that beast, is he going to come back after me and my family? Is he going to haunt us for another twenty-three years before coming back to repeat his torture for another twenty-three days?_

Something inside her told her to be weary, and the increased beeping on the heart monitor showed it. This wasn't over yet. She knew at least one of her tests would come back positive for evil. And if not evil, what good could possibly come out of this?

In her mind, there was nothing. Hopefully, there were no broken bones or need for a transplant of some sort. A hospital never meant anything encouraging. So, as she was separated from Jeffrey once again and wheeled into the CAT scan room, the fear settled itself in her body, right in the middle of her heart as a dark cloud passed over her head, which turned into a shadow that would follow her for the rest of her life.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	4. Revelation

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 4 — Revelation**

The CAT scan didn't take long at all, and before she knew it, she was back in her hospital room talking with Jeff and her mother once again. Her body had begun to register safety now, so her blood pressure and pulse had lowered to a more standard number since her arrival. Indeed, to the nurse, she was looking better already. Now, they waited for a long gruelling hour for the results of the scan and her blood test.

Trisha kept a watchful eye out the window, paying especially close attention to the sky. She stared up at the moon and thought of her brother, and for a long moment missed him.

_Thank you, Darry, for bringing my daughter back._ She knew in her heart that her deceased sibling had watched over her. Even in college, when they used to share classes, he would watch out for her if some jealous kid was picking on her, and later she would thank him with her notorious insults, as any other big sister would.

A quiet rapping came at the door, but she didn't hear it open. Usually, with a quick tap the doctor would swiftly come through the door, but this time it didn't happen. The knock sounded different, and hesitant. It came again, a little louder, and Trisha looked around, raising an eyebrow. Jetseta and Jeff were still chatting away like there was no tomorrow—a day they all hoped and prayed for.

"Come in," Trisha called, a questioning look crossing her features. At this moment, she didn't want to be bothered with anymore visitors; she wanted to keep watching out that window.

The door then burst open, and in its frame stood a plump black woman, with greying hair. A gasp from Trisha; she remembered this woman. Twenty-three years ago she had met her in the police station at Poho, right before Darry was taken. It was _her_—that cursed witch that had predicted Darry's abduction. She may as well have put a hex on him, for what horrible fate fell on his poor soul.

"You!" Trisha snarled. Jetseta and Jeff lifted their eyes from their conversation, seeming to just notice the newcomer that stood in the door. "Get out of here, you...you demonic bitch!"

"Trisha, I really need to talk with you," Jezelle replied calmly, ignoring the warning with sympathy in her dark eyes. Her voice was soft, an African American accent mixed with a southern one.

"Last time you did that, my brother got killed!" Trisha shouted. She walked straight up to her with her hands in fists. "You let that bastard take my brother, and I'm not going to let you curse my daughter such a fate too." At this, she moved in front of her daughter, as if animal instinct was taking over to protect her young.

"Trisha, darling, this is important," Jezelle replied. "Now I'm not here to do any harm to you 'n your family, please, you just gotta let me talk."

Trisha remained silent, but held her arms out to her sides. She clearly did not want this woman moving any closer, and her glaring expression said it all without a word.

"This time has come again," she continued anyways. "You know it, Trisha, deep in your heart you know it to be true, and just like it was with Darry…It came for something."

"What?" Trisha snapped. "Either give me a fucking straight answer this time or get out before I call security!"

"You'll know in time, dear. All in short time."

"What are you talking about? Why can't you just fucking tell me?!"

"Something I never answered Darry," the woman said sadly, her eyes shifting to the floor. "You asked me if my dreams are ever wrong. Well, sometimes I just don't know before they start happening."

In the background, Jezelle could see the young girl clinging to Jeff's arms, her head resting on his chest as she cautiously watched the two women speaking. She listened closely, taking it in; she knew who this lady was from Trisha's tales—the one with the dreams of doom.

"He's not taking her," Trisha was saying. "I don't care if I have to bring the entire US military in here. He is _not_ taking her again."

Jezelle shook her head. "Nu uh Trisha, he all ready got her. Now it's just a matter of time before he's gonna get what he took her for."

"What are you saying? 'What he took her for'? She's not dead; can you not _see_ that?"

"I see everything before it even happens, Trisha. You know it good."

"Mother, what does she mean?" Jetseta asked from behind, her voice a mere whisper as her fear filtered through her voice box. "I still have all my organs."

"I know you do, Jetseta," Trisha said, not moving her eyes from their fixed position on Jezelle. "She's just a crazy old woman, who needs to go to _Hell_."

"You can curse me all you wish, Trisha, but ain't nothing going to stop what's happening to her, right here, right now."

"What's happening to me? Am I sick?" Jetseta asked with a shaky voice.

"You're not sick, dear, just in a situation you ain't getting yourself outta."

A gulp was heard from the hospital bed, and Jetseta shivered, pulling her blankets up to her chin like a small child afraid of the dark, finding comfort in her blankie. Jeff glared at the black woman, but under that defensive veil, he too, was afraid.

"All I gotta say is you better get yourself a real close doctor that can treat her personally, for you ain't gonna want to tell the ones here once you find out."

"But...What _is_ it?!" Trisha yelled, but just as Jezelle opened her mouth, the more familiar knock came at the door and again it burst open, the bald doctor stalking in, clipboard in hand. Following him, Jetseta's father came in, hardly noticing Jezelle there.

"All right," Dr. Martin said. "Visitors out, it's time to reveal the findings of the CT scan and blood test to the patient. Out, out!" He shooed Jezelle and Jeff out with his free hand, waving it rapidly at the door.

A sigh came, but the two left quietly. The chubby physician closed the door after them and shifted his spectacles to a more comfortable spot on his brow.

"All right," he began, clearing his throat as if preparing for a public speech. "Your CT scan came back with only tiny revelations—Jetseta, you have a minor concussion which will heal on its own with proper care. Did you take a fall in your time spent there?"

Jetseta nodded, briefly remembering the unpleasant episode in which she fell into her own vomit, among a few others.

"Well you're going to be okay in that area," the physician nodded. "The CT scan did reveal that you have a raging infection in your throat, and the blood test confirmed it to be strep throat. We're going to give you an antibiotic for that; it probably explains how raspy you are and the swollen glands in your neck."

"Anything else?" Trisha urged.

"Not from the CT scan, Ma'am, but we are just half way through." The man adjusted his glasses again, and shifted the papers on the clipboard, putting a pen in the crook of his ear. "You have elevated levels of white blood cells, according to the blood test. This is due to both the strep throat and the numerous skin infections over your body. These will need to be properly cleansed until they heal, but you are going to have to be especially watchful and careful in you vaginal areas, for you have suffered a lot of damage down there. It may result in problems there, later in life."

Jetseta's lip curled, but otherwise, she still made no response. She kept her eyes locked with the practitioner's, waiting silently for more bad news.

Now though, it was the doctor's turn to have a puzzled face. His brows arched inwards as he read through the papers, flipping them back and forth as he skimmed their contents anxiously. "Jetseta, were you at all sexually active before your abduction?"

A bit wide eyed, but still silent, Jetseta shook her head quickly to indicate a no.

"Hmm, well, you also have elevated levels of hormones in your blood," he replied. "There is no chance you could be pregnant?"

Now her eyes threatened to explode with fear—they bulged so far, her family thought they would pop out of their sockets.

"My daughter is _not_ pregnant, Doctor," Jetseta's father spoke sternly. "She does not sleep around, nor do we allow her and Jeffrey spend nights together."

"Yet there is clear evidence that your daughter was mistreated sexually while in custody of her kidnapper," the doctor reminded him, trying to use the kindest words he could muster. "The blood tests don't lie; we think your daughter may be pregnant. Of course it may be too early to tell; her body may just be reacting in a way equivalent to such so she can heal. But I truly believe she is, for it is very rare for one to display these symptoms without being with child."

Tears burst from Jetseta's widened eyes and Trisha rushed to her side, taking her in her arms and holding her. Now she knew what Jezelle had been indirectly telling her. Jetseta really _was_ pregnant, and now there was a little demonic creature inside of her.

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Jetseta cried. Her vocalisations were so loud and desperate, as were her actions that she looked more like a toddler herself, throwing a temper tantrum.

"Shhh, you're going to be okay," her father said calmly, stroking her tangled hair. "We'll take care of you dear."

The doctor sighed, stifling back what looked like a cough or perhaps words he had thought twice about. His mouth stood open, and finally he found something more appropriate to say. "Other than that, you're daughter is in remarkable health. We will prescribe some antibiotics for her ailments, Ma'am, and please feel free to bring her in should anything else come up."

With that, the doctor shook Trisha's hand, left the three to themselves, and went on with his everyday life.

None of them noticed the dark shadow that was sitting in the top branch of the tree next to the window. The Creeper's ear twitched and a slight smile crossed his face before he took flight again.

--

The morning sun was all ready poking its light through the trees and over the golden corn fields when the family returned home. Jeffrey followed, and Jezelle was no where to be found, even in the parking lot of the hospital. Jetseta and Jeff shared a room that night, though nothing went on between them except a short exchange of words before she sobbed herself to siesta in his arms. Her brothers both collapsed back into their beds after welcoming their devastated sister, who briefly filled them in on the night's events.

Their father stayed up until the sun was fully over the trees' height, watching the house as his family slept. He didn't have to work that day, and he was a notorious insomniac; sleep wouldn't come to him _this_ early even if his life depended on it—which even though he didn't think of it, it did.

Trisha's slumber wasn't nearly as easy as the others' though. She tossed and turned, sleeping and snoring deeply but without comfort. Dreams of that vile creature plagued her for what seemed like hours, when in reality, the clock watched her for only about one. Her dream then shifted to something far more pleasant, but not what she would have hoped for.

_She was in a dark field that was littered with weeds. Thistles, milkweed, and tall grass flowed around her in the quiet breeze of the night, laminated by the moon that was busy playing hide-and-seek among the clouds. She looked up at it, tracing it by its light, and smiled as the cool wind blew her hair behind her._

_A soft voice came from behind her. She __recognised__ it instantly, despite it being so long, and the words of choice proved her assumption._

"_Hello Trash…I mean, Trish."_

_Trisha turned, at first into a blast of her own hair, but she parted it with a hand to see the face of her brother, Darry._

"_Darry!" she called, joy coming up from her toes. "It's been so long, I'm so glad you're back!" Running to him, she tried to embrace his form, but she slipped through the translucent __spectre__. The smile fled; he was just an apparition in her mind's eye._

"_Come on, Bitch, you know it's not going to be the same again," the younger boy replied. His face had not aged in the afterlife; he still looked to be in his early twenties—the same way she had last seen him._

_She sighed. "I know Darry, I just got my hopes up too far again, is all."_

"_You keep those hopes up," he said. "Never let them get _you_ down. Even when you feel like all those names we used to call each other are true, don't you ever let yourself get down, sis."_

"_Darry….I'm so afraid. I don't know how much more I can take. That devil is going to be the death of me, one way or another."_

"_I know you're scared, but don't be. Everything is going to be okay, I promise."_

"_What do you mean? My daughter is pregnant with what might as well be Satan's spawn, and most likely she is going to die if we don't either get her an abortion or ship her off to Area 51."_

"_Don't you dare!" Darry warned, his voice becoming harsh. "You can't do that. She has something very precious inside of her, Trish. What's inside of her is as precious as Jetseta was too you, and you remember that."_

"_But what am I going to do? I can't let her die. And how can you call such a thing _precious?_"_

"_She isn't going to die," he smiled. "She's going to be fine. I'm watching over her, just as I did when she was in the Creeper's hands. He wants his freedom from the hunger, from what I am understanding. I don't know the details since he isn't one for talk, but his other victims have mentioned similar attempts by him in the past. Those women all murdered his kids."_

"_The Creeper? That's its name?"_

"_Well, I don't know, actually. If he has a real name, I don't know it, and I don't think he'd tell me if I went up and asked. It's just what the other victims call him...I've met them all…Thousands of them."_

_A tear fell from Trisha's eye, but she didn't break. "I'm worried, Darry, I really am. It's times like this that I really wish you were here to give me support."_

"_I am, Stupid. I'm here right now, and I'm never going to leave. I came to you in this dream to tell you that. Now you go take care of Jetseta the same way you used to baby me when we were kids. You remember that, Trish? When we you would baby me whenever I'd scrape a knee or get a bruise?"_

_A smile came and Trish vaguely recalled a few individual times in her past. _

"_Then you do that to her. She needs you, more than ever. She needs you and Jeff—he's playing a big part in this."_

"_Okay, Darry. I understand."_

"_Better," he said with a smirk. "It's not like someone like you could ever figure it out without me."_

_She rolled her eyes, but smiled otherwise. "Thank you."_

"_Eh, it was nothing," he replied. "Just thought I'd swing by and invade your mind for a while as you sleep. Damn, you need to clean it out, by the way."_

"_Wait, before you go…" she thought for a moment, biting her lip. "Why did you say her baby is precious?"_

"_Because I did and what I say goes. They aren't bad or anything like that. At least nothing worse than you."_

"_Oh, shut up."_

"_They have an important purpose. I just haven't figured it out yet. I'm going to go talk to the other one."_

"_Other what?"_

She then woke up, her clock sounding its irritating alarm. It really all had been a dream, but at least she felt considerably better. Her mouth remained upturned in the same smile she had had in her dream, and she wished again that Darry was still there to help her. At least she knew he was there, spiritually, which was better than nothing.

She dressed and came out of her bedroom to find Jetseta hogging the shower, as usual, and Jeffrey working on a large plate of pancakes. The boys were still in their pyjamas and preoccupied with video games, hooting and booing at each other as they fingered commands into their controllers. Outside, her husband was busy gassing up the lawn mower. With the way everything was going, and after her dream, Trisha felt her life to be normal again. And she hoped that with the Creeper gone, it would stay that way.

--

Over a year passed, and although Jetseta was having a difficult pregnancy, her parents had not taken the advice of Jezelle to hire a private pediatrician or gynocologist. Trisha treated her daughter the same way she had been treated while pregnant all those years ago, and her motherly instinct kicked into overdrive for almost fourteen long months. Her own husband was a vet, and on late nights would bring home the ultrasound machine to examine Jetseta's insides. For some reason though, each time he would, he would pick up odd sounds only, and no images. The fluids inside her were thick enough to block out the sound waves, and it caused a great concern.

The length of her gestation had brought about the most concern, but Jetseta never let her parents know that she had secretly been starving herself with the hopes that her baby would die of malnourishment. She figured, if its father's weakness had been hunger, it would have the same problem, and would hopefully die.

Today Jetseta had hit her somewhat-predicted due date, though no official one had been given by her father, or anyone, since she had been pregnant for so long. She felt mild contractions at times, but otherwise was calm and relaxed. Trisha had relayed the dream to her, and once she heard it, all those months ago, she had felt much more relieved to know that her dead uncle was protecting her. She hoped he would keep watching over her even after she gave birth. Any doubts that she had had in the past regarding her mother being insane had evaporated long ago.

More though, Jetseta hoped that her child would be _human_. She felt a lot of kicking, and a lot of sensations that turned extremely painful in her abdomen, but so far, nothing out of the ordinary except for the ultrasound readings. Both her parents told her that she seemed excessively large, even for a pregnant woman, but she ignored it. She didn't go out in public though—who would want to see her 'getting fat'? She was even embarrassed in front of Jeff, who had practically moved in with the family.

Jetseta played video games with the younger of her two brothers while the other was out with his fraternity, and for Trisha, the sight of a pregnant female getting into the game was quite a funny one. Jetseta made expressions of victory, loss, and excitement, moving her hands as if she were actually driving the racecar on the screen; their movements matched that of the steering wheel. Smiling, Trisha sat down and pulled out a magazine, opening it to a page of new hair styles so she could find something for herself. Her husband was at work, and often called to check in on Jetseta's condition. The horror that had occurred fourteen months ago seemed to be the only thing to draw him back to his family. With two crazy members of his family, he had no choice but to believe their tales, now.

"Aww damn, you suck!" the boy scowled, receiving a laugh out of Jetseta. "My God, and I _almost_ beat you! Only thirty-five more points! _Thirty-five_!!"

"Kiss my ass," Jetseta replied, preparing for the next level and waiting for her brother to press the START button.

"Fuck you," the boy muttered.

Right as Jetseta was about to reply with a quick comeback, a sharp pain shot through her belly and down her legs. She cried out in pain, tensing the muscles in her face and gripping tight to the controller.

"Hah! That contraction made you screw up, you lose!"

But the contraction didn't stop, and when she derisorily tried to stand, her brother noticed a large puddle beneath where his sister had sat. She sank back to the floor, whimpering and clawing at the carpet.

"Mom! Come here, Jetseta needs help!"

Tossing her magazine to the floor in a heap of pages, Trisha rushed over and kneeled before her daughter. She noticed the broken water, which was an unusual thick, green gunk that smelled of death, and a bit of blood that was now leaking out as well. Panic began to take over; she had not even _thought_ of this moment. What would she do? Would she call an ambulance, or what?

"Help me get her onto her bed," Trisha said instinctively to her son. The boy nodded, and the two each lifted Jetseta onto a shoulder and helped her into her room. She sat on her bed and clutched onto a teddy bear that she had kept since childhood, crying and shuddering in pain as she did so. The boy ran out the door to call his father; Trisha fetched some warm water and towels. She returned quickly, ready to help her daughter as any mother would. She removed her pants and proceeded with a quick visual exam; for now, the girl seemed to be all right until a decision could be made.

The teenager rushed back into the room a few minutes later with the cordless telephone in his hand.

"She's going to be all right, isn't she? Dad's on his way home," the boy said.

"She'll be fine," she replied. "Go call her boyfriend and get him over here. She needs someone to comfort her."

The boy left, and for a moment Trish felt relief. About twenty minutes passed by the time Alan, her husband, came into the room with his veterinary supplies in hand. He opened the black bag as if he were a doctor from the Middle Ages and set everything he needed onto a dresser.

"Okay, quick, don't dawdle." Trisha snapped when she saw him fumbling with the tools. "This might go faster than we hoped."

"I've never done a C-section on a human before, Trisha."

"Who said we had to? Just go get her some medicine to stop the pain!" The girl whimpered and continued to clutch the teddy bear that had always soothed her pain and brought hope to her.

_Please, Darry, I hope you're around here. I need you to soothe us and give us hope too right now. Please let my Jetseta be okay!_

Calmness overwhelmed Trisha, but her daughter's pain maintained itself at high intensity. Her mind cleared, and for a brief time she remembered the dream, how Darry had told her to clean it out. Perhaps she would get to that, but right now, there was going to be no time. She had to think correctly now, and in a situation like this, there was no room for mistakes of any sort.

Trisha took a breath, as well as her daughter's hand. She was ready for anything, and she had Darry on her side to guide her.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	5. His Master's Voice

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 5 — His Master's Voice**

Thick, squishy mud gurgled and laughed under his feet as the Creeper walked down one of the long hallways of his home. The corridor was thin and dimly lit, set in a type of cave that was hidden to all other creatures in the always indigested bowels of the Earth. Fog was beginning to materialise around him, and with a quick crack of his wings, he was able to drive it off. He needed no distractions on this journey. His mind was a spinning vortex of various thoughts and dark emotions.

The hallway eventually turned into a tunnel with a staircase directed in a steep descent, and the torches lighting his way became scarce as he proceeded. This hall was meant to shoo off uninvited guests, no doubt, but in his three-thousand or more years, little would send a shiver down his stolen spine. He had a job to do, and now that he knew his offspring was about to be born, it had to be done now or never.

_Just get this over with_, he told himself mentally as his pace quickened. He felt the hall becoming thinner and thinner, reminding him briefly of the pipe he had once used to dump victims down. Wow, had that really been twenty-three years ago already?

His mind drifted against his will. It took him back to the times where he had once known peace and innocence, thousands of years ago. He'd once lived a simple life amongst mortals. How nice had that been? Was it really worth it to pay the price he had to keep his eternal life?

Two doors came into view, both made of heavy, thick obsidian. Taking in a breath, the winged man focused his strength and pushed them open, hearing a groan of protest in the stone hinges. Even to him, they were hard to open for they were even more ancient than he was, but it was the least of his concerns.

In here, there was a bit lighter, but it remained dim nonetheless. The room was large and cold; he could see his breath as he exhaled in here. At the other end a pair of crimson eyes looked him over, and as the head of the shadowed creature tilted, a pair of horns glistened with dew in the light.

"It took you long enough," a dark, male voice snarled in a language with so many syllables and sounds, no human mind could even imagine them, let alone speak them. "I had assumed for so long that you had forgotten our little deal. That is, until I received the news from the mortal realm."

The Creeper walked up to a worn mat placed in front of the seat that the larger being rested upon and sat down, crossing his legs. He hunched his wings and sighed, but kept eye contact, his lips contorting into a threatening snarl. He didn't want this higher being seeing him as weak, especially now, when things were bound to go wrong.

"Aww, now why are you so quiet—eh? Surely you found the best tongue in the land, _right_?"

"Get on with it!" the Creeper snapped.

"How defensive! Oooh, scary. Now…Why have you come to see me?"

"Your messenger told me you received the news from the human world. Why else would I be in this dump of yours?"

"Now, now, that's not a very nice way to speak to your elders!" the demonic man cackled, flaring his two pairs of dragon wings. Oh, how Rithyrn loved to toy with the minds of his slaves, to throw everything in their faces as if they were all children in need of serious punishment. "Hasn't your mother taught you to hold your tongue--? Oh, I forgot! She was brutally mutilated before you even got a chance to…"

"Enough!" The Creeper rose to his feet, bellowing a long roar of irritation that echoed off of the room's high ceiling and walls. "I kept up my end of the bargain. You have to release me."

"Don't you think you're being a bit too eager? You don't even know if your little brat is going to live! _Last_ time you got lucky, the girl's father skinned your child alive, while he begged for forgiveness with a fit of shrieks and cries. Don't you remember when he tore the wings out of his back?"

"I remember," he muttered. "You don't need to go on."

"I'm just saying, don't get your pathetic hopes up. You know how superstitious those foolish mortals are. They think anything with odd looks is cursed!"

His reply was a growl that died off when the Creeper lowered his head into his hands. A feeling of exhaustion seemed to overwhelm him, as did more unwelcome memories that no doubt were being sparked by Rithyrn's control over him.

"Please, just let me go...I can save it before they kill it."

"Save? _Save_?! Hahahaha! Now _that_ is a good one, coming from a serial killer such as you! Cute, man! Real cute!"

He shook his head, trying to push away the annoyance that this being was creating, when suddenly the voice from above shifted to a mode of extreme seriousness, the smile and laughs vanishing into thin air.

"Now I'm going to let you out, and give you as much time as you need as long as it's within a reasonable span…Just remember our bargain. …And I best not see dawdling from you, or I just might take matters into my own hands and put you through what your mother endured."

"I remember it well, Lord Rithyrn. Just let me go so I…"

"Goodie! And in case some parts of that little deal are a bit rusty, I am going to say it again, I want the soul _fresh_ and _innocent_! There's nothing better than torturing someone that has no former experience of _fear_ while sucking the life force from them."

"Yes, Lord..." he muttered.

Rithyrn stood; revealing his entire body in the light. The Creeper had not seen him in centuries, perhaps even a millennium by now. Yet like himself, this individual aged very little; he looked to be in his teens as his lesser studied him carefully. A thick mane running down his spine from his forehead to the tip of a whip-like tail was still brightly coloured of rich crimson as if he had dyed it with blood. Yet somehow, he was older still, by over four thousand or so years. He grinned and stepped forward, revealing a set of pearly white fangs and four folded wings, one set protruding from his scapula, the others from his hips. The flaw exposed itself through the opening of his robe—his innards were shrivelled, either decayed or non-existent all together, while his skin was littered with tears and decaying holes.

"The portal is open," he murmured. "I will expect you to keep in contact, yes?"

"Yes, Lord..."

"Goodie!" A snicker, and somehow they both knew this wasn't going to be as easy as it sounded.

--

It wasn't long before Jetseta's father had put her under anaesthesia for a caesarean. They had decided, after all, to give her one, for her pain was becoming just too severe for her to possibly survive a normal birthing, and a green slime that was starting to ooze from her vagina was only another hint that she would need help.

"Be careful," Trisha was saying as her husband began the procedure. "You've never done this before on a woman."

"I know that," he snapped. "Be quiet and let me concentrate. You take the baby when I get it out and be sure its airways are clear while I stitch her back up." He shoved a blue tube into her hands that resembled a teardrop made of rubber.

"All right," she replied. "Just...Be careful. I mean it!"

"I _will_! Shut up!" Stillness stung the air as Trisha and Jeffrey closed their eyes, letting the doctor do his duty. The only sound touching their ears came from a portable heart monitor, which beeped at a much more normal rate than before the anaesthesia had taken effect. The girl's father worked quickly; he was alone and needed to get it done fast without the aid of another physician, and without any reserves of B-negative should something go wrong. All he had were his surgeon tools, some hospital monitors, and his brain.

_I have to wonder, if a veterinarian was actually a better idea or not. Maybe he really is doing an animal surgery._

_Oh, stop thinking like that, Trish! _Darry's voice rang in her ears. _Think positive, Idiot!_

"Are you ready?" the man asked, jolting Trisha's concentration. "Things are going good so far; I think I've found it."

"Hurry," she breathed, adrenaline rushing through her own veins. "I don't want the medicine getting in the baby and killing it."

"Don't worry," he replied, working swiftly with his scalpel. "It rarely happens, and even so, I didn't give her as much in case the child has a problem."

Trisha nodded, but it went unnoticed. One of the brothers popped his head in, but the sight of blood and his sister's open abdomen grossed him out and he went running down the stairs; a screen door was heard as it swung against its rusted hinges. Jeffrey was busy wringing his hands, as if he were squeezing the life out of a tiny rodent he was planning to eat. Instead, what was substituted for prey was actually a towel.

"I've got it!" the vet called, his voice raising with excitement. "Open your towel, Trisha. Be careful, the baby will squirm."

Obeying, she turned around and watched as a bloody, crying baby was pulled from her daughter's womb, and placed in her covered hands. The vet didn't even look to see what his grandchild looked like. Instinctively, Trish started rubbing its face, gently, with the warm towel. She dried its eyes; clearly this child had no need for a nasal clearing. She looked down, seeing a light grey face that was anything but human staring at her.

_Oh, God…_

"A boy," she called, caught between fear and happiness.

"All right!" Jeffrey called, lightening up. "I knew it would be a boy!" He came over to the baby and gave it a startled look. Strange features were something he knew would result. Still, the scaly skin and thin spines that folded over his head and face were anything but attractive. His face looked beyond demonic with its spikes and folds of skin protruding from his cheekbones. Jeffrey felt a chill run down his spine.

The alien baby cried with life, flailing his tiny arms and legs as he was dried.

"What _is_ he?" Jeffrey asked.

"A monster," Trisha breathed. "At least he doesn't have wings."

"But he has white hair…"

"Look at his eyes! They're orange!"

"Be quiet!" The deeper voice snapped. "I think...No, it can't be."

"What?" Jeff asked, ignoring the boy's cries and walking over. More green stained the towels and instruments than blood; and the smell was far worse than any dead animals he'd come across. He couldn't help looking; there was still a bulge inside. It was moving in spasms, as if having a seizure, but...how could that be?

The doctor moved back in, nudging Jeff to the side in the process. He made a slightly larger incision where the previous had been, improving its length should the second child be larger. He feared it was dying, or even worse, hurting his daughter's organs.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me…"

"What's the matter?" Trish called as she finished wiping down the first baby. His cries continued, as did the flailing of limbs. "Is Jetseta okay?"

"There's another one in here, Trish. There's something wrong…It's seizing."

"Oh dear, hurry up! I'll call the hospital!"

"No!" Jeff snapped over his shoulder as he opened his towel. "We can't bring more doctors into this. Remember what that black woman said?"

The argument died off. The doctor's face screwed up, and for a brief moment he tore his hands away, trembling so badly he nearly dropped his tools. He backed away from his daughter, letting go so they slammed into the carpet, becoming hazardous weapons sticking up from the wood beneath. A bloody hand rose to his mouth, becoming paralysed there.

"What's going on?" Trisha yelled. "Do something!"

Taking a breath, Jeffrey walked over and held himself sniff lest he vomit at the sight. It wasn't the blood, or the open uterus that grossed him out; it was more the slime and the stench that came with it. From the incision a tiny black hand was reaching out, but not at all seizing like the doctor had thought; it seemed to be reaching for its removed brother.

"So tiny…" Jeffrey observed, cautiously touching its hand with one if his fingers.

"Is it okay?" Trisha called, quieting the baby in her arms. The child seemed to be dozing off rather quickly, probably still under the influence of the remaining medication. His eyes fluttered shut and he stilled, clutching the blood-stained towel in one hand.

"I think so," he replied. "I think I can get it out." Jeffrey glared at the doctor, who still was paralysed with what was probably a mixture of fear and sickness, whether it was from the sight or the smell.

"Goddamn, just do _something_!"

"I'm going to regret this," Jeffrey muttered, hesitantly reaching in with bare hands and gripping the slimy child as best he could. He felt afraid of hurting it, especially as he felt it _flinch_…

_Babies don't flinch while still inside, do they?_

But somehow he managed to keep his grip and lift it free from its confinement so they could look upon each other.

A blink, a scream, the sound of the father's footsteps hitting some serious linoleum down the stairs, and then absolute silence as Trisha and Jeffrey stared at the second born, who was just slumping in the latter's arms, head hanging as if it was dead. Their mouths dropped; certainly they weren't expecting _this _alien level to emerge into life? Coal black hair, skin, and wings, as well as tiny, bony horns on the cheekbones, yet absolutely no sign of life anymore. It was something so innocent, yet so intimidating, and had not even a sign of breathing to show its power.

"Trish…_Trish_!" She snapped back to reality, shaking her head and reaching for yet a third towel. She stared at the little creature, but even as her body told her to run, and take the more human-looking one to safety, she just couldn't. She just had to smile at how tiny, how cute, and how amazing it looked, even in this state of near-death. Jeffrey began to rub at its chest with the second towel, still as hesitant as before, as the vet finally returned to the room to fix up his daughter.

He didn't even look at the two children, or the two holding them.

"Come on little one, take a breath…you can do it," Jeffrey urgently begged, rubbing a bit rougher. "Come on…Don't die on me."

The baby seemed to hear him; eyes snapped open and out came an ear-splitting screech, one so intense that even the dogs down the road started to bark. The other baby cried, and once again his sibling answered. Large green eyes began examining their surroundings as Jeff sighed and Trisha tried to settle the first born.

"Hello little one," Jeffrey smiled. The child seemed to imitate him all ready; a toothless grin spread across its face.

"What is it?" Trisha asked. The baby in her arms made noises and squirmed, eyes wide and its head also on a swivel.

"I don't know…"

"No, Stupid! I mean, is it a boy or a girl?"

"Female," he answered. "And she's got wings."

"You know, I actually think she's cute. Any other time I'd be afraid of one of…them…"

"As would I, but…I have a feeling we should be afraid _for_ them, and not of them."

--

Icy air nipped at the wings of the Creeper as he glided through the air, sniffing it calmly and enjoying its freshness. He hovered over the East 9, his favourite hunting spot, waiting with anxiety and boredom for a passing motorist to torture. Energy levels weak, only after so few months, he needed food if he planned to function properly. Right now, his emaciated body was running on about a pint of water and the mushrooms that had grown out of his guts.

Looking down at a tattered leg, he groaned with frustration. It seemed as if wild animals had been gnawing at his idling body during his "hibernation", but didn't get too far after discovering how dry and tasteless he was. A slight chuckle; those animals were probably smarter than most of the humans he preyed upon.

An hour went by, then two, then a third. Waiting in the branch of a tall maple, the winged man almost fell asleep; his wings had become too tired for him to keep to the air. A crow startled him, just as he was about to fall off of the branch and onto the bare road, right in front of a green minivan that was making a hasty approach.

Before the driver could even register what had happened, a convertible was made out of the van with a simple peel-back of the roof, and soon a wave of verbal terror followed. Fear emanated with engine fumes, swerving up into the Creeper's nostrils with each terrified crank of the steering wheel that the middle aged man inside desperately made to throw him off. There was no time for games right now; he was far too hungry to dawdle and play with his victim's fear, this time.

Hardly thinking, animal instincts kicked into overdrive, mixed with the need to take a life just for the hell of it. He clutched a dagger from inside his robes, aimed in front of him, and plunged the blade into the abdomen of his victim—who was still drawing all over the road with his tires—and pulled it upwards toward the neck, between the ribs which he snapped through with ease.

Fresh blood splattered into the lap of the man, and he crashed head-on into a deep ditch, resulting in organs spilling onto the floor of the car from his entire abdominal cavity. The Creeper went flying past the tree and tumbled through the grass. With his degraded nerves, he felt nothing and walked back as if the impact was nothing more than a scrape on a knee. The murderer reached into the crude convertible, and pulled out a long intestine, searching for the connection to the stomach. Having found it with ease, he snapped it off as if it were a ribbon, squeezed it like a toothpaste tube to push out its contents, and began to slurp it down his throat, taking in the long organ and feeling it replacing his own decayed digestive tract. The thick spaghetti noodle stimulated his taste buds, and his mouth watered even further.

It looked like the reverse of a serpent predator—completely ingesting the meal whole, gulping it with sick contractions in the throat to push it down. Before finishing the stretchy organ, he flipped it around in the air with his mouth, amusing himself before swallowing and digging in for more.

He took everything he could find that was viable; the man was clearly a drinker, and he left the liver to the crows. He picked it up and flipped it into the road to receive freezer burn; he could find another later on. He also tossed out the pancreas, clearly the malfunctioning one of a diabetic.

A fun part came; he tore an incision down the back and plucked out the spine, individually removing piece by piece and examining them carefully. A healthy spine; he arched his own with a cringe as if he were suffering from bone decay. He tossed them up into the air and caught them with his tongue, crunching them up as if they were kernels of popcorn.

The brain came next; he beheaded the man by yanking the head clear off of the torso and, skinned his head, and cracked open the skull like an egg shell, using the rim of the van's door as a substitute bowl. Off came the cranial bones, and a fresh pair of eyes—which again became imaginary popcorn kernels—and then followed a healthy brain. He snorted; brains were tasteless, but he needed one nonetheless. He plucked off pieces with his nails, as if attempting to unravel the stringy pieces like he did the intestine. It didn't work as well as it did with some people. This one was perhaps a little _too_ sinewy.

Shrugging, he finished off what he could and took to the sky. The day was quickly growing old. What was it with this time of the year, and the temperature? Whatever it was, his bones ached and his wings weren't agreeing with the bitter cold that was taking over in the November time. He actually shivered…What was this all about?

He knew exactly where that annoying bitch and her overprotective mother lived. Of course he had forced it out of her, why wouldn't he? There was no lying; the pathetic female had just been too terrified in her first few days with him.

_Fool, she should have suspected that I'd go kill her family._

But he didn't. They still had their uses, and he didn't care how much they would protest them. That college girl had stuck up to him once; would she really do it again if need be? Doubtful, she was getting older. Even so, he continued to admire her bravery towards him—something few humans ever had.

The fly was a lot longer than he had anticipated, and by the time the house appeared, filled with the familiar smells of weakness, his wings screamed for a rest. He went into a dive and gently landed on someone's piece-of-crap Ford that looked to be a thousand years old. The lights inside the house were off, and all he could hear were the voices of news reporters on a television, probably located in a back room. He examined the two-story carefully, trying to figure out the locations of everyone just by the scents. Upstairs…They were upstairs. He smelled the skinny boyfriend of his former sex slave from an open window, as well as something he wasn't quite used to.

A tree provided a route to the window that the scent was emanating from. He studied the room from a thick branch, finding Jeffrey sleeping with a deep snore. A lava lamp was on between him and an open door, and various band posters lined the walls. Completely unnecessary, he figured. Bodies on the walls were much more appealing than photos, after all.

Finding a hole in the screen, the Creeper plucked the entire thing out with a tug of his finger. It came out easily, and he let it fall onto a trash can below with a soft clank. Far too simple, for now.

The man in bed shifted and kicked a blanket onto the floor as he climbed through the open window. Otherwise, he continued to keep the beat with his snoring and occasional mumbling. In a far corner the Creeper found what he was looking for—inside an old wooden crib were his offspring. The floor creaked under his weight as he walked, but he assumed whoever was downstairs would dismiss it as being Jeff. He looked inside the crib, and to his surprise found two babies instead of the expected one.

They were both sound asleep, but he carefully removed the blankets from them to examine their bodies. One looked almost exactly like him, with coal black skin, claws, wings, and odd facial features. The other was wingless, light-skinned, and white-haired. Clearly they were both his; as he realized this, he felt a lighter feeling come on…was this not a feeling of hate and selfishness, for once?

_Just pick one and get out of here_, he told himself.

But which one? The wingless child was closest, and he took the chance of picking it up. It certainly wasn't something he would call attractive, but it was unique. He was sure of Rithyrn's desire for a unique soul to torture. He checked inside the diaper and learned that he had a son.

Just as he set the baby back into his bed, a wail pierced through the room. The child had rolled right onto one of his nails...

..._How foolish!_...

...and seemed to now be stuck on it. He wrenched it out of the child's leg and ducked behind the crib. The man in bed was already up and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Are you hungry _again_?" the man asked, smiling as he looked into the children's bed. The winged child was still asleep as her brother cried; however in the dark Jeff did not notice the tiny spot of blood that had been wiped into the blanket. He proceeded to change the baby first, wasting no time in doing so.

"I'll get you both some bottles," he said, heading towards the kitchen. Perfect.

The inexperienced father then stood from his hiding place and perched up on the railing, reached back into the wooden cage, and took the other child, this time, attempting to be more careful with his nails. This one seemed to be mellower than her brother; she yawned and rubbed at her eyes before looking at him directly.

Again, he inspected her. A daughter as well; this day certainly was a treat from the gods. She flared her wings and carried on the sounds of any regular newborn, seeming more interested in her crib's mobile than anything else.

Voices came from downstairs; the Creeper recognized Trisha's. It still sounded the same, and for a moment the memories came back. He didn't regret it…Why should he? Humans were there for him to eat, not to care for. They were simple minded, primitive creatures.

Another yawn from his daughter chased the memories away. And why did that boy, Darry, linger in his mind so often, anyways?

"_Pick one and get back here!"_ The screaming command inside his head startled him, yet again. Rithyrn was clearly becoming impatient.

"_I don't know which one to--"_

"_Just do it, I don't have all day."_

"_You said I could have as much time as I need."_

"_So? I want to see what it looks like."_

"_You'll see when _I _am ready."_

The voice ceased for the time being. He looked again upon his daughter, bringing her face right up to his and sniffing her quietly. She opened her eyes widely, sniffing back. Did she really understand that he was her parent? Did she understand that she needed to familiarise herself with his scent like any animal would?

The other child began to cry again. The boy was just...too human. Something seemed wrong with him—he cried, he was wingless, and he barely had any facial spikes. If he took that one back, would his master be satisfied? If not, would he have to give up the more "perfect" child?

"_You want your freedom...Bring me one of them!"_

"_I can't right now!"_

"_Why? They are just newborn brats, what could _you_ ever do about them?"_

A pain struck him as he set his daughter down. She began to whimper, and without thought he picked her up and held her against him. He lifted his son as well, holding him with the other arm, and amazingly both voices died down and they fell back to sleep within moments.

_How can I give up these children...They are just too precious._

_What is wrong with me?! I'm not supposed to be thinking like this. They are just babies who don't even know how to swallow most likely! I could eat them just as easily as I eat people._

_Then why am I feeling this way, damnit, what is WRONG with me?_

"_Bring me one of them! Bring me one of them! Do it, do it! Do it, NOW!"_

"_No, I can't!"_

_I just...can't do it._

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	6. The New Neighbour

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 6 — The New ****Neighbour**

The sun was setting over the Nebraskan horizon when Jeffrey came home the next evening. His aged white truck came to a silent halt behind the rest of the vehicles in the old stone driveway and the lights flickered off like tired, blinking eyes. He cracked his back as he came out, picking up a few Wal-Mart bags from the floor of the cab. On the porch he saw Trisha rocking herself and eating a microwave dinner, looking up at the sunset with a dreamy intensity as she chewed. The rusty door of the weary Ford slammed shut with an agonising groan, catching her attention like a scream. She rose and trotted over to him, her hair blowing in the pre-winter breeze.

"How is everything?" he asked. The plastic bags rattled in the wind.

"Not as great as anyone would have liked," she answered between a mouth-full. She continued to stare at the sky—mesmerised by how the angle the light caught some falling leaves. She only came to look at him when he began to walk to her house with a tired kind of limp.

"I'm sorry," he replied, wiping cold sweat off of his forehead with a sleeve. "I should have called in sick for work today."

Trisha shrugged and kept eating. "Jetseta is awake. She's been asking for you, but I told her that you went to work. She's terrified."

"Why?"

"I…" she stopped, as if searching for the right words to say. She tucked the hair attacking her face into her hooded sweatshirt, hoping it would stay put. "I showed her the babies and she…Well, she freaked out. The little winged one…Basically, she suffered some first-hand abuse from her. It was attempted murder, to be blunt. The other one…I think she stabbed him with something."

"Stabbed him? What the fuck—? Attempted murder?"

"Come inside. I'll show you."

The creaky door slammed shut behind them as they retreated into the household. Trisha looked around; everything inside was quiet. Only the lights were on, no televisions, no appliances, not even the furnace. She walked cautiously as if afraid something would pop out at her any time and scare the shit out of her. The tenser she seemed to become the higher Jeff's level of curiosity rose. He found himself wondering…_Has she seen something? Does she suspect that this is only going to get way worse as time flies by?_

Jetseta was fast asleep in her room when they went upstairs. Sleeping had become the only time he ever found her at peace; when awake, the girl presented a constant bitchiness about her that turned her against the Jetseta he once knew and loved. It was as if she was becoming feral in her behaviour. Her old grey cat sat beside her, purring and flicking his tail around. Yellow-green eyes watched him carefully, their pupils dilating slightly as they moved to view the room. The cold of the outdoors lingered; her window was wide open and her covers on the ground. He noticed her bandages—freshly changed but stained with blood nonetheless.

"Is she all right?" he asked, taking note of the chill in the area.

"She's fine." Trisha opened the door to the children's room, acting as if she were walking on eggshells. Only the lava lamp was on, the window back here had been closed, and a portable heater placed on a dresser. "Look," she said, picking up the little boy from his crib. A bandage was laced tightly around his leg; he squirmed in protest of being woken up.

Jeffrey carefully lifted a portion of it; underneath there was a deep gouge, as if a knife or a claw had punctured his skin. Dead skin flaked off as he moved it; the small wound was black, though for some reason it resembled tar instead of blood. It was sticky and foul smelling.

"We have no knives that could have created that type of wound," Trisha imparted with a heavy sigh. Her eyes closed with thought; her hand found her forehead and pressed against it. "I wish I knew what she did. Heck, even the cat's nails aren't that big. She won't tell me and just keeps denying it. I know it was her…Especially after what else she did."

"I don't know," he replied. "I didn't notice it last night."

"Look at the girl."

"What happened to her?" Jeffrey found the little black creature tangled in a mess of blankets, huddling in on herself. She looked to be hiding from some sort of monstrous predator; as he took the covers off he found her hiding under her large wings. That little toothless smile that had been present on her face the day before had been chased away by the wrath of pain. She rubbed at her head and whimpered like a lost puppy.

"I took her into Jetseta today, like I said," Trisha began. "I thought she would be happy to see her babies—I told her that even if they were born strange looking they would still be special. This little girl flared her wings with a huge grin and Jetseta did nothing but scream. She took her by the wing and hurled her against the wall…and that wasn't it…she…she forced herself out of bed and proceeded to…to kick her repeatedly until the throbbing in her own abdomen brought her to her knees."

A dumbfounded look crossed Jeffrey's face. He stared at Trisha with a look of both revulsion and surprise. A lone tear fell from the woman's face, seeking refuge in the carpet.

"Are you serious? How is she even still alive?" he asked.

Trisha blinked repeatedly, forcing her emotions under control with a deep breath. She looked at the floor for a moment, again, thinking. "You should have heard the screeches that the poor thing let out. They were loud enough to wake the fucking dead."

"I believe it."

"I tried to calm her," she went on as Jeffrey finally took the baby from her crib. "But she kept growling, squirming, and screaming and only quieted when I fed her. She was bleeding and broken…She's just too small to take that kind of force! She drank her milk and just…Within seconds her body fixed itself!"

"Amazing," Jeff breathed. "Why not the other, though?"

"He's too human," Trisha replied. "Eating doesn't heal him like that."

"At least they are alive and well right now." The baby clung to his shirt for dear life, staring out the window. She was afraid…afraid of her very own mother. She flared her nostrils, catching her scent as it wafted into the room, propelled by the breeze.

"Yes," Trisha said. Then a smile formed on her lips as she looked at the boy in her arms. "Jetseta named him Xavier."

"She did?"

"Yah, I was surprised. She looked at him and said, 'He looks like a Xavier, so that shall be his name'."

"And what of this one?"

"She remains nameless, as of right now. I couldn't think of anything."

"Oh, the poor thing."

Her little wings flexed as footsteps came into the room, but she relaxed upon seeing the grey cat rubbing his head against the doorframe, purring heavily. Her fingers soon found their way into her mouth, and she began gnawing on them quietly.

"I was thinking that perhaps you should name her," Trisha suggested.

"Me? But I have no talent with names. Surely she deserves something very unique."

Trisha was looking out the screenless window at the sky again, her expression one of misplaced exaltation. "That's all right. I was thinking about it earlier today…For some reason the name of Darry's old role-playing character kept popping into my head. In college, him and I used to spend hours role-playing, and I think it was the only time I'd ever let him win at anything."

"Really? Who was this character?"

"Well, there were a bunch of them, but one of the female characters he created was Jarzi Morsa."

"Heh, I could get used to that." He looked down, noticing the child staring at the cat and chewing on her hand. "Stop eating your fingers." He loosened the girl's hand from her jaws, but just as he let go, his own hand was grabbed and being chewed on, luckily for him without teeth.

Trisha smiled. "She was a hybrid demon that came to Earth as a peaceful soul. Her old master sent her there to torment people, but she found herself unable to do it because nobody had ever done anything to her. And so she defied her master and fought against him, allying herself with humans and protecting them…Heh, after convincing them that _she_ didn't mean them harm. I wish I could remember the specifics. I have the printed copies in the attic somewhere…"

"But how do you know what this creature will turn into? I mean come on, look at her."

"I know, but still, Darry would smile if he saw her named this."

"Then her name shall be Jarzi Morsa. Any idea what it means—?"

Trisha took a moment or so to remember. A little light turned on in her memory bank, summoning a wide grin.

"Betray the Reaper."

--

"Old Mr. and Mrs. Cuddigan haven't been outside lately," Jetseta's father was murmuring a few days later. "Think I should go check on them?"

"Nah," Trisha replied. "I'm sure they're just getting behind on their farming."

"But you know how they are always on top of things. They haven't been in their fields or in the yard all week. That woman's biggest concerns in life are those damn weeds in her flower bed. Must be nice…"

"I know, but maybe they're busy. Please, just leave those old bats alone."

"Trisha, I'm worried. They're senile and sickly."

"I know, but please, Alan, just relax. Last time you checked on them, they yelled at you for assuming they were too long-standing to get anything done."

The vet rolled his eyes, flailing an arm up. "And you know that it turned out the old man had a stroke."

Trisha gave a defeated sigh, rolling her eyes. "Fine, go over there and check. However, don't you come home with a thundering cloud over your head when they send you back and call you impertinent!"

"Okay, okay…" He agreed, pulling on his snow boots and a jacket. He walked outside still buttoning it up, the screen door slamming against its rusty hinges until the wind shifted and closed it. An eerie feeling passed over him as he crossed the snowy, deserted highway that wasn't even messed with tire ruts. The cars next door were covered in snow; a week or more worth of layers was caked on the hoods and rooves. The Cuddigans were always brushing snow off of their cars.

An unnerving silence chased away the sounds of nature as he stalked up the Cuddigans' driveway. He felt as if an invisible force was pushing him away, a fear, or perhaps a psychic sense that danger was in that house. Even so, he pushed himself forward, forcing himself to think of the old couple before his own safety.

Their front door was unlocked; in fact, it pushed right open without a touch of the knob. It squeaked against the silence's dark veil, revealing a cold living room where a struggle had obviously ensued. Had someone burglarised these old rich people?

_They're dead. Oh God, they're dead!_

"Mr. Cuddigan?" he called. There was no reply. It seemed even colder in here than it did outdoors...Was it his fear causing it? He didn't look at it, but the thermostat reading was below the fifty-five degree marker—far below.

"Ruth? Tom?" he called again. "It's Alan, your next door neighbour. Anyone home?"

Again, there was not even a peep. He wished for _something_, as much as he couldn't stand these senile people. He stepped forward, his hair beginning to stand up on the back of his neck. He glanced down at his feet; a scuffmark was attempting to hide beneath his boots. It dragged into the living room in distorted streaks and curves, where it died out at the carpet.

"Tom—?" his voice whispered. "Ruth...?"

He was terrified now, with sweat beading up on his forehead. His heart was racing, the adrenaline battling with his emotions. There was an old untied shoe to which the scuffs belonged; it was resting in a puddle of blood.

As he moved closer to the doorframe, he discovered the body of Thomas Cuddigan. _Was_ this even his old neighbour? The old man's face had been completely rearranged; claws had visibly slashed through his neck in a hurried frenzy, over his chest, and through the black church suit he had most likely just put on before death had come to greet him. Had it been any warmer, and had his mind been functioning, he'd have assumed that flies would be having a fête.

But they weren't, and if any cognizant creature saw the gruesome sight of the face-gutted old man they would propel their bodies in the opposite direction and think later. And yet he stood and stared, taking in the scene and the evidence, and the gut-wrenching smell of death. There was a dishtowel on the kitchen counter that was waiting to be used; he picked it up and tossed it over the man's face.

Alan turned around, searching for a phone. The old couple had not been fond of technology, despite their richness; was there even one in the house? Nothing in the living room or kitchen, so he headed upstairs. Quite a bad choice, he discovered, as he absentmindedly touched the railing and ascended. Halfway up, a cold substance stuck to his hand, following and smearing as he trailed it up the rail. He looked down; the blood summoned a petrified scream.

At the top hallway was the body of old Ruth, completely stripped of both clothes and vital organs. An intestine had spilled out, as well as Alan's vomit soon after, and was hanging over the floor—had he mistaken it for a decoration, or not noticed it at all? Her mouth sent out a silent plea for help that had gone unheard by the sane. Her death had not been quick at all.

_Eaten alive...She was eaten alive._ There was even a chunk of her arm bitten off to prove it.

Alan didn't even bother with the stairs. He leapt over the side, landed with a _splash!_ in the blood and half-digested food puddle beneath the intestine, slipped, and continued his dart for the door, running like a headless chicken.

Yet he never made it outside.

Instead, he executed a dead-on body slam with somebody very tall, very heavy, and more menacing than anything in his childhood nightmares. He looked up at the Creeper, who had a giant childish grin plastered on his face; at that moment, Alan's trembling bladder let go of its contents. An infantile snicker came from the monster as his face flushed. He felt paralysed in fear—just what it wanted. He _thought_ it was a man in a mask, but it just looked so _real_. His upper nostril contracted, his face was drenched in sweat, and the wings on his back flexed as he leaned in to sniff him.

Meh, this one didn't smell good at all. There wasn't anything seriously wrong with him; he was just too slim, too frail internally. The Creeper snorted out his ghastly scent and knocked him aside. The man tumbled over a small side table, hitting his head on the corner and taking a lamp with him. Its shade rolled into the safety of a corner; the light and porcelain base shattered into an instant death before it completed its journey.

Alan heard his attacker strut into a back room—perhaps to investigate the bodies and be sure they were still there. Wasn't he going to return and tear his guts out as well? Wasn't he going to go across the street and finish his daughter and wife off for good? But he didn't lay there and speculate, or wait; he stood up and limped out the door, shutting it tight on his way out. He only made his way across the road and up to his door before he knelt down and blacked out, stress and shock taking over.

--

The Creeper trusted the intruder to not tell; the look on his face said it flat out. If anyone lived to tell the tale of an encounter with him, the fact that nobody would believe him or her kept them silent. Trisha's belief that his twenty-three year hibernation was still valid would keep her from believing anyways, he hoped. She had heard the news, probably saw his body in Old Jack's barn all those eons ago and heard of him freeing himself. The threat of those humans causing a problem now was miniscule.

Now it was time to investigate his new hideout. Right across the road, and in an actual _house_, what could be more brilliant? He could watch and torment them whenever he liked, if he was in the mood. But for now, current decorations had to go and others put up. It wouldn't take him long to find enough bodies, either. He wouldn't have to scatter them based on the intervals in which they were alive. The bodies of the old couple were quite disgusting; he decided they would make other uses.

He found one immediately; he looked at the walls that were covered with a thin paper and framed pictures here and there. _Floral patterns_? No, that was anything but acceptable. After a frustrated attempt with his nails, he didn't feel like wasting the time to peel them off, either. An idea sprung to mind.

Outside, he remembered his old truck parked in the back yard. He went out, pulled open the back doors, and yanked out the group of five bodies he had stashed inside. He dragged them in, feeling a rush of heat against his face from the doorframe. He then realised that the bodies were beginning to smell, something he had never worried about in the past due to his limited time—he'd always preserved them right after death. These bodies had been in there for over a day, and his hypersensitivities now came to bite him in the ass. He tossed the bodies on the floor, grabbed a random kitchen knife, and began to carefully skin them, starting with a large cut down the torso, going to the feet from the inner side of each leg. His knowledge of skinning properly was limited, but it wouldn't matter, for these bodies weren't even going to be stitched back together.

Their bones were set on the counter to be further cleaned while useless, slightly decayed organs were tossed into the trash can. The human hides peeled off easily for the most part, while the connective tissue of some areas needed to be cut. He worked quickly but carefully. When he stretched skin from muscle, it snapped like putty, sometimes squirting cold blood into his face when it did.

When the skins were fully removed, he turned the kitchen into a psychotic butchery by hanging them from the ceiling fans to dry out. Simple string laced through the eye sockets and hung from the fans' wings did the trick. He grinned to himself, proud of how genius that simple act seemed.

Next came the bones, which he scrubbed clean with a Brillo pad and some bleach. He giggled insanely as he did this one, which took an irritating extra hour to finish. He then set them out to dry as well, right up on the window's ledge where the sunlight could find them. He faced the skulls so they looked outside with eyeless sockets as dead slave-guardians to his new home.

The laugh-attack seemed to calm itself as he finished, admiring his project in the making. But in order for it to happen, he needed more bodies, so he ran out the door to the BEATNGU and drove down the highway toward the interstate for some fresh food.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	7. Nameless Pain

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 7 — Nameless Pain**

Fear wasn't something Alan was going to let himself worry about when he awoke from his quiescent state of being. Using the knob on the front door, he hoisted himself up from the ground and the sticky puddle of gut remains, bacteria, and vomit he had been miserably slumbering in. His eyes protested to the sunlight as he forced them to focus and move, sending a jolt of pain through the nerves that had all ready been overused for the day. He wondered how they even still functioned, how anything even functioned, how the planet was even still rotating on its fucked up axis. He still didn't believe what he had witnessed, and wasn't going to let it bother him anymore.

He opened the door after a struggle to grip the diseased knob and walked into the comfort of his living room, but it meant nothing now. Nothing did anymore, for he felt he was a failure at everything. He could no longer consider himself anymore than a victim, although the creature had never professed an interest in him to begin with. He was prey in another way, a tormented way; if he allowed himself to continue, the thoughts would plague him for the rest of eternity. He had no idea how Trisha had dealt with this for the majority of her life. Nobody was in his living room, so he passed through in sopping, urine-filled sneakers. A trail of undigested food was left to crust the carpet over, and as he walked parts of what he had fallen in dripped from his clothes with sickening plops.

Trisha was in the kitchen washing dishes, and her face contorted when she saw, and smelled him.

"My god, what happened to you?"

"I'm going to go shower," he replied, staring at the floor. "Don't go across the street."

"But what happened? Why are you so filthy? You smell like death!"

"I know."

"Please, Alan! What the hell happened to you?!"

"I'm going upstairs…to take a shower…"

Trisha gave up as her instinctive rage began to engulf her. Horrible flashbacks rose inside her, triggering the fear that she'd promised herself never to experience again. She wished that the shield would go away, as it had over the decades, so she could investigate for herself. She had to let go, to not let the past haunt her so badly. Why was seeing this any worse than Darry being strangled before her eyes?

Her husband staggered up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms, falling up the stairs more than once. She turned back to her dishes, pondering what she would do as her heart raced frantically. Something told her to move on and fix everything, but how? How could she do anymore than she had for Darry? She couldn't do anything then, she couldn't do anything for her daughter, and now she couldn't do anything for her neighbours. The problem here was that she didn't know _what _was across that street, for obvious, naive reasons.

She kept washing crusty sauce from a dish pan until the silence and her anxiety were temporarily broken. An unmistakable bang echoed through the house and its open windows, ceasing the possibility that Trish would ever receive an explanation. But for anyone that believed in the Creeper's feeding cycles, someone blasting their head into to a million pieces just didn't cut it.

--

Sitting on a broken stool in the corner of her bedroom, Trisha held her knees tightly to her chin, hoping for and awaiting the presence of her younger sibling. The immortalised twenty year old dropped by in random spurts, sometimes in childish moods and other times in a more adult manner, but always retaining that blithe personality that she had known her whole life. Darry's ghost somehow sensed when she was upset, but still she lingered anxiously. The kid was an ass but never took it to the level of keeping her in intentional pain, but once she began to doubt his abilities he materialised before her.

"What's the matter, Trash?"

"Would you please stop calling me that?"

"You know you like it. What's wrong? You seem so empty." Darry cocked his head to try and see her face, which was aimed at the ground as if she was trying to stare through it.

"I thought you would know…" Trisha replied. "Alan…He shot himself."

"My god, why?"

"I don't know," the elder sibling whimpered dryly. "But my problem now is…I'm so used to all this pain being thrown on me I'm not even affected anymore! I can hardly even cry."

"You never were an emotional person."

"What you knew back in the day was the complete opposite of what it _should_ be. At least I knew how to express myself! I swear those police are suspecting me now because I was so serious. My kids were bawling because their father took his own life. And I just stood there like a fucking zombie waiting for my interrogation to begin. I'm turning into a machine, Darry!"

"Stop it, you are not."

"Well it sure as hell feels like it!" she yelled. "All I ever feel anymore is anger. It's like a fucking curse."

"Trish, do you know why he did it?"

"No! I don't!" She stopped for a moment to rub at her eyes, as if trying to will tears to drop. "He went over to the neighbours' house to check on them. They're old and senile, ready to croak at any moment and that's what he _thought_ might have happened. He was over there a good hour, and came back so drenched in filth it was like he'd crawled out of…Eh, he refused to explain. Just went the fuck upstairs and BAM! No more Alan!"

Darry hovered in a sitting position over the floor as a full-body apparition, reminding her of the levitating Yoda from Star Wars. He looked at the floor in thought, analysing its unique patterns of intertwined laces and flowers. In one square the bow seemed tied around the bouquet's stems too tightly; the flowers wilted and screamed silently in an inaudible and inanimate death.

"They're dead, Trish."

"Hmm?" she looked up, also lost in her own vivid thoughts that Darry cared not to venture through. "Oh, the neighbours?"

"Yah...Murdered in their own home."

"Should I be surprised? Every death around me has been the result of painful homicide. Oh, sorry Darry..."

"It's fine. I don't hurt anymore. But they're gone, Trish."

"How do you know?"

Darry shrugged. "Just a power one acquires when the life has been eaten from them."

Trisha shifted on her unsteady stool and looked out the window at the old Victorian-style abode. It was too far back from the road to make out definite shapes, and she had misplaced her glasses again, but it looked like a pair of headlights was in the process of turning into the neighbour's house from the East 9. An old engine's complaint followed, disappearing behind the walls of their house. She decided to think nothing of it; it was probably one of the police officers anyways, right?

"What if the person who killed them comes after me?"

Darry shrugged. "You know that's unlikely…for this part of the century." Apparently, he had no idea what really was hiding over there, playing them for fools.

Trisha sighed, wanting answers.

"I must retreat," Darry said suddenly. "They want you for questioning."

The door was banged on; Darry was gone before she even looked up. She rose, ready to be ripped apart again and again by the repetitive leeches of the law.

_What does it matter? …There are no rules anymore; it's all about winning and losing…not how you play the game._

_--_

It wasn't long before the irritating wail of a siren could be heard coming from the horizon on the East 9. For all the times they had frequented that road, had they ever accomplished anything? The Creeper watched out the window as a few police cars, an ambulance, and the county coroner appeared across the street. He had to admit that it was the fastest he'd ever seen them respond to any scene of his responsibility. He wondered if some of the officers would come over and tap on his door, so he went to lock it, still scrubbing a half-cleaned tibia on the way. It was too early for him to be discovered; his scourge had to be kept to an assumption until he felt the time was ready. Even if it took another twenty-three years, he had to keep hidden until he felt everything would go right.

He continued to observe the medical team heading into the house through his kitchen window, scrubbing harder with his Brillo pad to keep him occupied. When one would become a nice ivory colour, he'd rinse it in the bleach and set it to dry in one of the dishwasher's racks. He watched as that obnoxious bitch emerged, clinging to one of her brothers like a depleted cry-baby. A need for revenge welled up inside his dusty guts, as well as the sadistic fantasy of shoving the tibia at hand all the way up her gastric tract from behind…or perhaps a hose first, to clean her bowels. It would make the Jeffrey Dahmer assassination look like child's play. But her scream was annoying, and she had never smelled good from the beginning. Perhaps it was a mistake. _She_ was a mistake.

_Too late. Must finish before I'm starving again._

Cleansing of the last tiny phalange was just finishing when a huge squabble erupted from across the street. The Creeper rested his chin on the faucet and watched as Trisha mowed down the cops with insults full of blatant rage. He laughed again as the younger woman attempted to march back into the house, ending up face-to-face with the coroner and his photo team. More screaming ensued as the dead body was wheeled out and pushed roughly in to the black van.

The yelling only ceased after the death doctor had left the scene; but silence of the rest still awaited its turn for the teens were still going at it through a fit of tears and whines.

Hunger began to pine again. He soon found himself leaving in his old truck for food, not waiting for part of the constabulary to take the family to the station, leaving the Creeper's brats alone upstairs and the forensics team to continue the investigation. He decided to not be gone too long, lest some nosy prick go over and ruin everything. Even if nobody else was on this cursed boulevard, they'd make a fine addition to the skins and bones.

The team did not notice the truck's complaint from being fired up again at high speeds; the presence of unusual substances had captured their attention like a kid to candy. Fifty cotton swabs drenched in blood and a few hair samples later, the three investigators emerged with a shift in the conversation. While one packed up a police car full of genuine evidence, the others started a line of assumptions that they were doomed to bring up in court, if the need arose.

"It's been over an hour since the police, the family, and the coroner left, who wants to get some coffee before the shift ends?"

"Sounds great to me, Matt."

"I think we should go check across the street, guys. That house looks awfully suspicious tonight. No lights on, cars unattended to, all the windows shut…"

Trisha had purposely left out the detail about Alan reporting the neighbours death after his visit to their house.

"I'm not going over there without reinforcements, Kyle. We should call Officer Hayes or do it in the morning."

"What are you scared of? It's just an old dumpy house. Don't you think it's a little odd that those old farts haven't come over here with a hint of concern?"

"No…You heard the woman say that her husband shot himself after coming back from over there. They're either dead or they scared him shitless."

"Probably with some Voodoo magic. You know the stories about this road."

"Yah, whatever. I'm going to go knock on the door. If nobody answers, we'll just call it a night, okay?"

"Well when you're looking down a double-barrelled gun, don't come crying to me."

"It's not a good idea, Matt. We're a forensics team, not the military."

"Yah, we really need the military to bring down some old bingo players. Shut up."

"Fine, we'll head back. But we need to tell someone to check in on those people; I don't like the feel I get looking at that place."

Two of the investigators hurriedly checked to make sure they had everything; Matt lit up one of his Camels and walked across the street, but luckily came back empty handed and only offered a shrug as to why. The men's professional attitude fell to pieces as they sat in their car, arguing about the closest place that offered the best caffeine high to keep them going through the night. However, the length of the East 9 made them bored, and the conversation died down to an occasional remark about evidence or some random cop's marital problem. But little did they know that it wasn't a night at all; it was only just beginning.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

_**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	8. I've Made Up Your Mind

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

The earlier chapters have been fixed up, if you missed that under the introduction.

**Chapter 8 — I've Made Up Your Mind**

BLAZING ULTRAVIOLET RAYS rained down and scalded the black hair exposed from Jarzi's red baseball cap. Like the other distractions that the world had to offer, such as her brother's repetitive and rather annoying bouncing of a rubber ball, she blocked it out and focused all her attention on her current drawing. Hidden under the rim of her hat and behind a pair of reflective sunglasses, she acknowledged no one unless a conversation was initiated by some other party. She had learned quickly through the years not to speak unless spoken to, with a select few exceptions.

A hard slam on the head from her brother's rubber ball snapped her out of her artistic trance; she ripped the headphones attached her new MP3 player out of her ears and stormed over to her brother, pushing him down into the dusty remnants of a driveway puddle. A startled and rather angry glare came back at her; but she refused to yell and give him the satisfaction he wanted, and walked calmly back to her picnic table, which over the years had become territory that no one was allowed to invade.

"Sorry, Jarzi! You don't have to get all ticked off!"

"Basketballs have a very small probability of hitting my head, X. Go away," she snapped.

"Then come play catch or something with me! I'm bored and there is nothing else to do around here. You've been at that drawing all day. Don't you want a break?"

"I'll go flying later. Go away."

"Come on Jarzi, you're no fun."

"And tossing a ball back and forth is any more entertaining?"

"Better than your stupid scribbling."

"I'm not scribbling."

"Are too!"

"Shut up!"

For a moment or two, the slim boy went back to throwing the ball around, chasing after it as if he was his own dog. Jarzi watched in a jaded manner, slightly frustrated on her artwork and how much erasures she had all ready put into it. She turned off her MP3 player and decided that maybe she really did need a break, to do something active in the daylight, for once. Going to sit in the sand, she picked up a few of her brother's toy vehicles and began to ram a miniature tractor trailer into the rear of a red Aston Martin, repeatedly, with child-voiced sound effects to make it feel more realistic in her imagination.

"Know what I really have always wanted to do, Jarzi?!" X exclaimed from the other side of the yard, as if he were announcing it to the entire world.

"What?" she muttered, ramming the toy cars violently against each other. Soon, she had created her own miniature interstate in the sandy driveway with a pileup and a motorised police car to go with it.

"I want to go into that old lady's house when mom isn't looking!"

"Nobody lives in there, Idiot."

"No way! You remember once in a while when we're in bed we see that big mean looking truck driving out way early in the morning. Somebody lives there! I want to go see…I bet he's got a monster lab in there or something, or maybe aliens."

"You watch _way_ too much TV."

"Are you kidding me? I hardly watch anything these days. Mom is always hoarding it in her miserable mood and making the room smell like booze. We should sneak over there one of these days and…Jarzi, do you smell that?"

"What?"

"I smell food! I swear! And I'm hungry!"

"Whatever X, go in the house and eat something."

"But I swear, someone must be cooking out in the woods or something."

"Is there ever a day that you aren't thinking with your stomach, X?"

"No, why don't you ask yourself the same?"

"I do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do not!"

"Do too! And don't break that truck. It's got my…"

Hearing the screen door slam on its rickety hinges, the two eight year olds turned to see Jeff, whom they had come to refer to as "Daddy" over the years. The keys to his old Ford dangled from his middle finger, and with the other hand he scratched at his rather un-groomed chin. A look of unnecessary vexation crossed his eyes when he noticed the children arguing, but kept on his path to his truck. Jarzi quickly bolted to her feet to follow her surrogate father, abandoning her model calamity without finishing its determining fate.

"Want to help me check the fluids in the engine?" X heard Jeff asking Jarzi, but the rest of their conversation took a back burner to the delicious smell of whatever cookout his hypersensitive olfactory organs were picking up. Knowing that the other two were too engrossed in the fascinating world of vehicular bowels, he stepped into the corn field leading to the cluster of pine trees behind his house. He had never ventured out there before, for the corn field was too tall for him to see over, but the smell was intoxicating, and there was something else there—a hint of fear, associated strongly with homicidal pain. But X didn't understand such malicious feelings in his young innocence; he merely interpreted them as the strange mysteries hidden within the golden field.

Without realising it, he walked as carefully and slowly as a lioness stalking her prey, sinking his boots into the dry yet soft soil beneath them without making a sound. He listened every few seconds, straining his ears to hear anything that may indicate where the smell was coming from, but the growling in his stomach became too loud for him to concentrate on nature's sound effects. It seemed like the field would never end, as if the pine trees were becoming smaller in the horizon instead of larger. He reached them after what seemed like an hour, looking eagerly for the source of the invigorating scent.

"Hello!" Xavier jumped higher than he was tall and landed flat on his ass, spinning in midair like a cat to face whoever had startled him. Huge, black eyes with red irises stared back at him accompanied by a ridiculously large smile that made him think of the Joker from the animated Batman series. Unlike the hyperactive clown though, the creature's teeth were more like rusty knives than pearly-white cubes.

"Don't do that!" Xavier shouted angrily. "And who are you?!"

"Sorry to scare you, little lad. The name's Rithyrn." Xavier noticed an enormous yellow asp coiled around the demonic man's body, flicking its tongue passively ever so often in his direction.

"Are you an alien? Or a dragon?"

"Not at all, why do you say that?" Surely, aliens wouldn't speak perfect American English and wear such a smiley façade.

"Because you remind me of one or something," he replied. "Whoa! That's so cool! You have four wings!"

Rithyrn flared them and stood up straight, clearing an easy eight feet. "That I do. You hungry?"

"I am! I smelled food from all the way at my house!"

"I've got something tasty for you," he said, shaking his red mane to keep away the flies away. Fortunately for his target, his black cloak covered his decayed body. "But you have to promise me something."

"What's that? And where did you come from?"

He leaned closer to the boy, dropping his voice to a mere whisper that the air could barely carry in its desolate mood. "I come from a special place called Lithsisti'ess. You might even be lucky enough to see it someday! But you have to promise me never to tell anybody, okay?"

"Tell anybody what?"

"That you ate with me. It would spoil your dinner, no?"

"I guess," he shrugged. It wouldn't matter to his stomach anyways.

"Or that you even came out here, too. I wouldn't want your daddy to find out. He'd get pretty angry at me, I'm sure."

"He won't."

"Goodie, then!" Rithyrn turned around and rolled his eyes, letting go of that damned smile that was such a pain to maintain. _Children are so fucking stupid…Yet I had no idea they were _this _easy to manipulate…_

He led the boy back to a small clearance in the trees where his food was cooking on a primitive barbeque over a rock. Xavier had no idea that just behind that huge boulder was a stack of corpses that had recently been slaughtered, since the scent emanating from the coals washed out the beginning of putrefaction.

"I need you to tell me if this is any good," the creature said, handing him a heap of tattered meat. "Haven't done this in a while…"

"It smells good…and that's all that matters." Xavier gulped it down, his neck muscles contorting like a snake's body trying to engulf pray ten times larger than its own body. He didn't chew it, having discovered long ago that chewed food digested faster.

"You want some more?" Rithyrn offered a fresh platter, that smile still playing out on his face.

"Yes I'm hungry," he replied while swallowing. "This meat is pretty good…Where'd you get it?"

"Oh, just a store…"

"I could get used to this. My mom doesn't know how to cook."

"Oh, you'll get used to it…A bit more than you think."

Their eyes locked briefly, leaving the boy feeling a bit light-headed afterwards, when a yell wafted over the cornfield for him. He snapped out of the hypnotic daze and stood, sighing a bit with dismay. "I've got to go before my mom gets mad…"

"Okie! Do come back, though. I'm camping out here."

"I will…"

The boy ran off back into the cornfield, calling back to his angry mother as he made is way through the towering plants. Rithyrn looked into a glass of water that he had brought to see his reflection, and made out just enough in the dim reflection to notice that some colour had returned to his dead-looking face after staring into that boy's eyes.

--

Weeks passed, and each day that was contained in them set some time aside for Xavier to go visit with his diabolical friend in the back yard. Surprisingly, Jetseta had never questioned her son's trips behind the corn field. She knew very well that he ran off, but usually was too drunk to give a shit or follow him out. Her drinking binges had become much more frequent over the years, and with each alcohol consumption a violent side would erupt. Everyone learned to avoid her when she drank so that they wouldn't have to deal with it.

One such night, Xavier was late coming home. Jeff was beginning to worry about him; he had noticed subtle changes in the boy that became more apparent as the month aged. His playful nature seemed to recede as he became more personal and reclusive toward his family. He had overheard Jarzi talking to him one night, telling him that she detected an unusual and distasteful scent on him, but he decided to dismiss it. It wouldn't have been the first time that he had tried to eat a dead bird full of maggots or decided to take a bath in a mud puddle. However, he remained weary about him, hoping it was just a stage that all children passed through at least once in their lives.

This was now the second time that Xavier had been outside for far too long. It was nearing midnight, and he knew Jetseta would soon be arriving home from a booze fiesta at her friend's house. He decided not to go looking for him. The area was so devoid of civilisation that there was really no point in wasting the energy.

He sighed though, recalling the last time this had happened. His mind drifted into a flashback as he blankly stared at the television's broadcast of basketball highlights.

_He had just arrived home with Trisha after an out-of-town business trip. She had tagged along with him for advice, leaving Jetseta alone with her kids for three days straight. Her sons had long moved out—the oldest was now living in a cabin in California while the other was attending graduate school in Canada. At the time, they hadn't thought it a big deal to leave Jetseta alone with them since she had promised not to drink while they were gone. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of their lives._

_Although Jetseta's car was sitting in the driveway, there was no sign of her. It was 9:56 in the morning—a time where she was usually still in bed. She was nowhere to be found in her house, though. Xavier was trying to play video games with vacant, dead eyes. Something seemed to have __traumatised__ him, and when questioned about it, he ran upstairs to his bedroom and slammed the door. Trisha was instantly in an uproar about Jetseta's leaving her children there by themselves, threatening to no one in particular that she was going to have that girl locked up one of these days in order to straighten her ass up. Jeff ignored it and knocked on Jarzi's door. He heard what sounded like heavy boots frantically moving about, but they ceased a second or so later. No other noise came from inside, but he had a feeling that she was in there. It had to be her—Jetseta would never stay in a room with that girl. He heard another movement as he listened against it—it was the soft panting of the family's rottweiler. _

_He knocked again, but with a lack of response decided to open the door. Inside he found the most horrific scene ever imaginable—even the horror movies didn't portray murder to be this gruesome. Jarzi was sprawled out on the floor in a puddle of blood, covered in a soiled blanket and the dog. The rottweiler whimpered and stood up from his protective position over her wounds and waddled over to him, looking solemn and worried. Jeff's mouth had dropped. Blood was splattered all over the walls, the window was wide open with the screen pushed all the way up, and Jarzi appeared to be either dead or unconscious. He shut the door quickly—Trisha certainly did not need to see this. _

"_Oh god, oh god what do I do?" Jeff asked quietly, trying his hardest to not cry. He knelt next to Jarzi, careful not to step on her all ready awry and broken wings. He touched her bloodied neck, trying to find a pulse. There was nothing. Then, he noticed that under her blanket something was protruding at an angle from her chest; he pulled it back just far enough to see that the butcher knife from downstairs was the culprit. Her entire thoracic cavity had been torn open and mutilated. One of her lungs faintly functioned as he saw it attempting to inflate every ten seconds or so. At least it was something, he figured, as he threw the blanket back over the appalling wounds._

"_Jarzi, wake up!" Jeff begged, shaking her slightly and slapping her face a few times. "Please, wake up! You have to wake up…come on…breathe!"_

_She didn't move, even as the dog came to lick her face a few times. The animal whimpered and again tried to sit on her—as if it would do any good. Jeff continued shaking her, then found a glass of old water on her bureau. He grabbed it and splashed some on her face, but again, it did nothing. Not knowing what else to do, he manually pried her sharp teeth apart and dumped the water in, which ultimately triggered a gag response. _

_Jarzi opened her eyes and spit the water out, coughing a bit. He could see the viable lung heaving under the thin sheet that was covering her, and looked away with shut eyes until she calmed. _

"_Kill me," Jarzi croaked quietly. "Daddy, just kill me."_

"_Jarzi, no!" he practically yelled; she seemed to be fading again, so he lightly smacked her face a few times to stimulate the nerves to work. "What the hell happened to you?"_

"_I don't remember," she whined, tears running from her eyes. It was a lie for, 'I just don't want to talk about it.' "Kill me…It hurts so much. Please, make the pain stop."_

"_Hang on," he said, standing up. "Don't move. I'll be right back."_

"_Oh I'm not going anywhere," she replied before falling limp again. The dog continued to __whinge__ and licked her face._

_He dashed down the stairs, nearly tumbling into his own bloody heap. Trish heard the commotion and glared at him in her already sour mood, her mouth open and ready to shout._

"_Go get my gun," he snapped. "It's in my truck. Go find Jarzi some food."_

"_What?" she asked, her voice filled with a high-pitched confusion. _

"_I said go get her something. A horse, a deer, I don't care. A coyote for all I care."_

"_Why? There's food in the fridge you know!"_

"_No, Trish. It's bad…Really, really bad."_

"_But what's—?" she gaped at him, the words silencing from her mind's processing unit. _

"_Jetseta mauled her, okay? Just go!"_

"_Jeffrey I can't pick up a horse!"_

"_Take the truck! I don't care, just go find her something! And don't go into her bedroom."_

_He threw the keys at her from across the room, having found them in a cabinet drawer where he kept them locked away. Not looking back, he fumbled his way back up the staircase and disappeared, a door slamming soon after._

_Jeff returned to Jarzi's side and attempted to re-awaken her for several minutes. He heard his old truck starting up and peeling out of the driveway, silently praying that it would come back soon. The rottweiler had gone over to the window and was preoccupied with howling out of it like a lonely wolf. _

_He sucked up his fear and held his breath, deciding to look under Jarzi's blanket to get a glimpse of just how badly she had been mangled. The blanket was sticking to her guts, and as he pulled it away, a thick, stringy tar came with it like melted cheese and snapped when its stretchable limits had been reached. He gagged at the sight; her organs had been stabbed so violently that he couldn't make out which parts were which, or where they were _supposed_ to be lined up in her body. _

_The sight didn't take as violent a hold on him as it would a normal person. He had slaughtered farm animals all his life, so at least he was familiar with the sight of runny guts and blood ponds. After the usual nausea and chest pains had passed, he started to examine her body a bit more thoroughly. He still couldn't make out any natural shapes beyond bones—several of which were broken, including ribs, her sternum, her wings, and one of her arms. Her bleeding seemed to have stopped, and the puddle she was laying in was drying rapidly into a black stain on the carpet. He noticed that the black gooey substance that had clung to the blanket was covering most of the stab wounds, especially along what he assumed to be arteries, veins, and lymph vessels. He touched it and picked some off, wondering if it was some sort of natural anticoagulant or just some alien substance that had appeared out of nowhere. After all, with a creature such as this, anything seemed possible. The only conclusion he came to, though, was that it smelled like mould._

_He briefly recalled the past, when he had seen Jetseta's wounds covered in it. Was this the same material? But the picture of her face inside his mind angered him; right now, he wanted nothing more __than to rip her apart and make her feel what this innocent child was going through. It just wasn't fair. What the hell gave her the right to do such a heinous crime, anyways?_

_He then noticed that a lot of the tar-like liquid was covering her wings, which didn't have any open wounds on them at all. They were mangled and painfully dislocated from her scapular joints, but where had it come from? It couldn't have dripped, and it was too thick to have been secreted like sweat. What the fuck?_

_About a half-hour passed, and the truck ripped into the driveway again. Trisha hauled ass into the house, yelling his name. He abandoned Jarzi while he went to confront her, leaving the rottweiler to keep her company. _

"_I found a deer," Trisha said. "It was a lucky find—standing right on the side of the road giving me that terrified look." She gulped a minute, wishing she had phrased her sentence better. "It's just a baby doe…You should be able to carry it. I'm not touching it."_

"_Fine, fine. Stay out of Jarzi's room." He then went to his truck, pulled the carcass out, and dragged it inside. _

_Trish, of course, didn't listen. Curiosity overwhelmed her—certainly it couldn't be as bad as Jeff was exaggerating it to be. She had seen enough all ready, with her husband's brain splat taking the cake with an eyeball on top._

_She walked in and instantly screamed, somehow managing to jolt Jarzi from her unconscious slumber. They stared at each other through blurred eyes as Trisha slumped to her knees, covering her mouth to stifle her cries. _

"_I told you not to look!" Jeff shouted when he came in, dragging the deer behind him by a leg. He tossed it by Jarzi, who had again passed out, and began to shake her. "Please, wake up and eat."_

_Jarzi moved a few minutes later, but seemed more interested in her dog that was staring out the window than anything her surrogate father was saying. _

"_Jarzi! Please, eat this. It'll make you feel better." By now, Trisha had left the room, so Jeff felt at least a bit more relief upon knowing she wasn't going to watch._

"_I can't move," she whispered. "It hurts too much…"_

"_Okay, fine," he replied. "I want to remove that knife, but I probably shouldn't."_

"_Just pull it out. Let me bleed to death, I don't care."_

"_No!" But he pulled it out anyways with a ridiculous amount of force needed, receiving a bloody squirt in the face as the makeshift heart septum was removed. He moved away quickly and opened the deer's body. He did his own job on it in the ways of mutilation, frantically trying to separate the ribs. He gave up and went under them, feeling around to cut the heart away. He found an opening in the aortic wall where the bullet had pierced and hoped that Jarzi's own aorta had survived the battle._

_Looking back, he saw that the geyser of blood continued while Jarzi watched it, tears streaming down her face. He took the heart and put it up to her mouth; she swallowed it whole. They watched with both horror and amazement as the severed organ inside her chest sealed its wound and began to beat in a normal, calm rhythm. _

_Jeff moved back, knowing she was at least out of immediate danger and continued to feed her an organ one at a time, including the muscles she needed. She even asked for the scapula, which she __cracked between her powerful jaws before eating. When she swallowed them, her wings shifted back into place._

_It didn't take long for her to be fixed—a description that Jeff thought of with a shiver. He left the deer's shredded carcass on the floor and helped her up. She was sobbing still, but snapped her wings out to her sides. In the areas that the tar covered, the broken bones reconnected into position so she could fold them behind her back as usual._

"_Damn," Jeff said afterwards. "You're fucking lucky, Jarzi."_

_She kept crying as her dog jumped up to clear the tears from her eyes, which encouraged her to smile, if even just for a few seconds._

_He walked out and found Trish huddled into a ball on the hallway floor. He rolled his eyes and went into the bathroom to wash up. Jarzi came out a few minutes later and looked at her. Trish didn't seem to notice, so she knelt down and touched her hands, lightly pulling them away from her face. _

_Trish looked at her through bloodshot eyes. "Oh my god, are you serious?"_

"_What?" Jarzi asked, still with tears streaking her features._

"_You…You're…"_

"_I'm all better now."_

"_I see but…how?"_

"_I ate the deer you brought me. Thank you."_

_Trish stood up and hugged to girl, feeling an odd sort of relief from the creature's ability to regenerate. For once, it paid off. Jeff watched them hug from the bathroom, smiling a bit. At least he wasn't the only adult in the family to accept Jarzi's monstrous appearance and powers._

--

Xavier eventually came back, running up to his room without so much as a wave. Jeff sighed and let himself fall asleep. Jetseta never showed up, for whatever reason, and he really didn't want her to. She hadn't come back for days. Perhaps it was for the best that she stayed over that bitch Carolyn's house. He had come to loathe her with a passion.

Trish was upstairs reading a book when a knock came at her door. She set the novel down and turned off her radio. "Come in," she said softly.

The door opened a bit and Jarzi walked in, shutting it behind her. "Can I ask you something?" she said quietly.

"Sure Jarzi," Trish replied.

"Well umm, I don't know how to say it without being weird." She sat on the floor beside Trish's bed and began to pick at her feet. "But…Who's the guy you talk to when you're alone?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The man with the dark hair and that quirkiness about him…I hear you talking to him a lot, but I can never smell him."

_She's talking about Darry…I thought I was the only one who could see and hear him…_

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Yes I would."

"It's…He's…My brother." Trisha answered, sadly.

"Your brother?"

"Yah, his name is Darry. He…He died a long time ago."

Jarzi looked sad, but didn't ask for details, as Trish expected her to.

"Well…I saw him the other day. I was just curious."

"You saw him?"

"Yah, while I was dying. I thought I was hallucinating at first, but he had the same voice that the man you had been talking to did, so I knew it was him."

"What did he tell you?"

"Not much. He just told me to hang in there and not let my mother win because she's a bitch and will get hers soon enough."

Trish couldn't help but grin. "Leave it to Darry…"

"Yah, and he stayed with me until I fell asleep. I was there for three days almost, and whenever I would wake up, I'd usually see him there."

"He's watching over you, that's why. Don't be scared of him."

"I'm not, I was just curious. Well, I need to go flying so bye."

With that, Jarzi ran out of the room, full of her nightly energy. It _seemed_ as if things had gone back to "normal", at least for now.

"Way to go, brat." She muttered out loud before returning to her book.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**_

**_Jeepers Creepers _**copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	9. Poseur

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

WARNING: Severe lack of table manners. Who needs forks and spoons?

This is a spur of the moment, random chapter that was written more for fun than anything after I wrote Chapter 9. XD

I technically don't have time to be working on this due to university work, but…After watching some cool videos on YouTube I just couldn't resist getting back to it. This is going to suck ass because I haven't practiced writing, so my ability to write has gone straight down the toilet.

I have complete pencil portraits of Jarzi and Xavier if anyone would like to see them. Just ask and I'll dig out the scanner and try and get it to work…

By the way, if anyone hadn't heard, Jeepers Creepers 3 is IN THE MAKING! It's scheduled to come out in 2010!

**Chapter 8½ ****– ****Poseur **

HE COULDN'T DECIDE whether he enjoyed this new feeling or loathed it. Identifying its origin led him to question it; for once in his life, the wrath was centred from something other than his own hatred and suffering. He was exploding with rage because of someone else, and he refused to acknowledge it as _caring_, let alone a piece of vocabulary with deeper significance. However, it gave him a sense of worth, whereas before a cloak of indifference had covered him. On one hand he wanted to make something of himself through this fury by getting rid of that pitiful bitch. On the other, he was just hungry.

The day had started as any other—he snapped awake around 9:30 AM with his normal gut-wrenching hunger. His legs took him to the old ice cream truck before the sleep had been rubbed from his eyes, but before he could get the engine into gear, the delicious smell of terror teased his hyperosmia like a kitten's shedding fur. Abandoning the still sleeping truck, he followed the trail across the street. He eventually picked up the smell of decay, though slight, escaping through the cracks in the open windows. One of the cars was missing from the driveway; he knew that they often left his kids by themselves for several hours at a time. Surely something had happened to them.

He looked through the picture window of the living room and saw the boy clutching a video game remote, his eyes staring into the vast and mesmerising realm of grey television fuzz. It was as if the noise it made and the silvery, jumping sparkles had hypnotised him, for he didn't move. He could easily have noticed the movement outside the window, but his eyes didn't waver from their centre of focus. Had the sun not created a glare in the window, the Creeper may have noticed the paling of his son's eyes before he decided to walk around the back of the house.

The defensive growling of the black rottweiler caught his attention as he sniffed around the back. Looking up, he saw the dog baring its fangs at him, its paws pushing against a window screen as if trying to rip through it. It barked and hissed, becoming more violent with the thin screen as he climbed up the wall. He reached the sill and held himself onto it with his forearms to let the dog sniff him. The rottweiler whined for a few minutes before trotting over to Jarzi's blood-drenched body. It sat on top of her back and watched him cautiously, the hair on its back spiked up unnaturally, caked with black, drying blood. Its muscles twitched and its lips dripped with saliva, as if waiting for him to break through the window so it could attack.

He did just that and freed the screen from the casement. Before he could climb through it and stand up, the dog pounced on him with more power than he had expected, as if trying to shove him back out the window. He kept a hand in the curve of the animal's throat to prevent it from biting him and growled in its face. The animal's fear didn't manifest itself like a human's would; it was territorial and protective, pushing the fear aside to defend the members of its interspecies pack. It fought him angrily, even after it was pushed aside into a pile of laundry.

As he was standing, the dog attacked again, and he realised this would just either continue or end in the animal's death. He kept his serial killing to humans, so as the dog growled, he laid down in front of it with his arms slightly above him, his eyes diverted to the bloody mess. The dog recognised the sign of submission and came to sniff him, its cropped tail still pointed upward in a pathetic attempt to be intimidating. It hesitated for a while, taking in the anomalous scent, and finally decided that the acquiescent behaviour was acceptable. The dog then went over to its owner's side and whimpered at him, expecting him to do something about it now that it had let him stick around.

The Creeper sniffed his daughter and flipped her over. The wounds themselves weren't anything surprising to his eyes, but the foreign feeling of guilt gnawed at his conscience as he took in the sight. She didn't open her eyes or even twitch, and for a while he thought she was dead under the blade of a kitchen knife, until her shattered ribs moved above a frail and failing lung. Even though he knew it couldn't happen, he still felt the paranoia that she may die and freed one of his daggers from his belt. For a moment he wondered if he should pull the butcher knife from its fleshy casing, but left it alone to do its job as a provisional interventricular septum. He looked at his dagger and aimed it at himself—it was the only thing he could think up at the moment, and had no idea if it would be worth it as he sunk the blade into the flesh of his forearm and ran it down the street. His black blood shot out painlessly and he collected it in his palm, then rubbed it onto the immediate wounds, which sealed up or healed enough to keep her body functioning. It wasn't enough to regenerate the damaged organs, but for now, it would do. He wiped the last bit of blood on the external, superficial wounds on her wings and face before wrapping his wrist in a pillowcase that was stacked in a laundry pile next to a bureau. There was also a folded blanket nearby, which he threw over the girl's body to hide the wounds.

The human residents had gone unnoticed until he heard Jeffrey knocking on the door, his fists frantic and demanding.

"Forgive me," he muttered to the unconscious girl before jumping out the window and running back to his house, leaving the human to take care of her. The idiots had to know what to do by now, after all these years.

--

This was war, and the drunken bitches didn't stand a chance in hell with their puny Volkswagen and empty brains. He'd found the car after hours of searching in his old ice cream truck and was giving it a few kicks in the ass before they even saw him come up behind them. A girl whom he didn't recognise was sitting in the back, holding onto the headrest of the passenger seat with one hand as the car swerved and a longneck with the other as if it was more important than her own life. In her state of mind, it probably was. He kept ramming the tiny vehicle, bruising it with scratches and dents in every direction. Their fear smelled like hot apple pie would to a kid, and this was going to be like taking candy from a baby.

Eventually after enough smashing, the car gave up and spun off the road, its tires struggling to keep on their bearings. It slid to a stop in a puddle of mud, which easily ceased its skirmish. The BEATNGU truck came to a halt up the road and idled for a moment, its driver watching for movement, but none came. He stepped out and marched over to them, but as he approached it quickly became apparent that they weren't dead. Jetseta was shaking the girl in the back seat when she noticed him; her mouth dropped and she blinked, probably thinking that her alcohol was playing tricks on her vision. The driver wasn't paying attention to her rear-view mirrors. Instead, her voice seemed more annoyed that she had spilled her drink on herself. She was even ignoring the frantic slapping on her shoulder coming from Jetseta's trembling hand.

A moment later, that tapping hand found itself lacking a surface to hit. Jetseta turned to look at the driver, but the vacant seat summoned a gasp of a beer-smelling breath from her lungs. After that, she felt herself lurching backwards, and everything went black.

---

_Where am I? Oh God, my neck! It won't move! I can't see…It's so dark. Oh God, what's that smell? I must be dead. All I feel is pain, all over my body, and I can't move! God, help me! He's come back to kill me! I…I can't go through this again. Please God, help me!_

Jetseta's senses slowly began to function again as nerves responded to their unpleasant stimuli. The room was black when she finally found the power to open her eyes, but she could see the silhouettes of her friends not too far away. The Volkswagen's driver was staring blankly into space. She was sitting what appeared to be a chair, but Jetseta couldn't tell for sure. She shifted her head to look down, silvery glitter dancing in front of her eyes like pixie dust as she moved. Her other friend was passed out on the floor, though in the dark she couldn't tell if it was just a hangover or an injury. She tried to call out to the other women but her voice didn't feel like working at the moment. Instead, she let her pounding eyes adjust to the dank room's lack of light.

The rest of her body slowly came back to life, which she realised as a sharp pain began to shoot through the branching nerves from her spine. Her backbones were killing her, but she couldn't figure out what was wrong with them. She decided to move her arm to rub it, but when she attempted to do so, her wrist caught on what felt like a cuff. Looking down again, she saw through the silver stars that her wrists and the chair's arm were linked by a leather straps. Attempting the same with her feet, she felt the same thing, and eventually her torso as she tried to view them. With adjusted, yet still hurting eyes, she saw that the other girl was also in a chair like hers.

_These are electric chairs. Where did he get them? Oh God, I'm going to be electrocuted!_ Jetseta heard footsteps behind her and panic beginning to bubble up in her guts like boiling water. The fear overran her, even as she noticed that her friend's chair had no cables attached to it.

The footsteps quieted, and for a moment Jetseta wondered if she had even really heard them. She kept listening as more pain came to life within her body, more apparent it seemed as she experienced the fear. She didn't want to die—not here, not by the hands of a monster. She wanted _him_ to die.

"Carolyn," she called finally. Her voice was barely a whisper as it cracked and choked with protest. "Carolyn!"

The woman shifted and also attempted to move her limbs, finding them immobilised. "Jetseta! Dag grrl, we gotta get outta here."

"I can't move!"

"Neither can I." She looked down and saw the third friend, still passed out in a pathetic heap. "Breanne! Wake up, dawg. Get up!"

She remained motionless; her breathing couldn't even be seen in the clammy darkness.

"Grrl, where are we?" Carolyn asked.

"I don't know," Jetseta replied. Her slurring was still heavily evident.

"Well we gotta figure out sometin cuz I puked all over mahself when you was out co'd."

"I can't untie myself! These straps aren't ropes!"

"Jetseta?"

"What?"

"Umm…Behind you."

Jetseta strained her neck as much as it would allow; the corner of her eyes just catching sight of their captor. He growled angrily when she saw him, his pale eyes reflecting in the light of a small torch, making him look all the more menacing in the dark against his black skin, and before she could scream he had toppled her chair with one swing of his powerful arm. Carolyn's screaming became a continuation of the echo that the wood had produced when it slammed into the floor. It became muffled as Jetseta shook her head again, pain surging like the chair's once electrical current. She looked up after realising that she was still alive and not burning to find the Creeper covering Carolyn's mouth with one of his grey hands, snorting the scent of her hair as if she were a meth pipe. He quickly decided though, that she wasn't worth making a meal out of, and slammed the flashlight onto a nearby metal table. The incessant howling continued anew.

"Leave them alone!" Jetseta shouted, but it only proved to annoy him further. He stomped over in his heavy soldier boots and leaned into her face, snarling like the starving animal that he was. Unable to move her limbs, Jetseta snarled back and spat in his face, though she had never learned how to hack huge wads of phlegm like her brothers. "Go back to Hell where you belong!" she snapped. His only response was to spit back, enough to cover her entire face. She closed her eyes and screamed with her friend, even as some of it dripped into her mouth to mix with her booze-scented halitosis.

"You…PIG!" Carolyn cried, summoning his attention once more. He walked back over as the predicted screaming resumed, taking advantage of the girl's wide open mouth. He made a fist and punched her howling orifice, his blow powerful enough to bust through a dental barrier and knot her tongue in the back of her throat. Carolyn's eyes attempted to pop out of their sockets as she stared up at him, still trying to scream but pleading only with her eyes for him to leave. She knew better; she was about to die. He flexed his fingers inside her mouth, ripping her tongue with his nails. It couldn't even flail; it was pushed into her pharynx and destroyed as the girl gagged. Her body reflexively vomited, but with his claw blocking the escape route, the mixture of chime and remaining alcohol had nowhere to go but back down, up again, and back down in a suffocating cycle. The girl was limp and dying from the poisoning affects of carbon dioxide and the panic that sped the cycle up. He felt his victim's oesophagus contracting and contorting in every way it possibly could to try and eject his hand. As if he were clawing up a steep slope, he dug his nails into her muscle and scratched his way down her tubes, ripping them open and apart to accommodate his muscular arm. He felt around the area of her chest to find her heart frantically beating in its thin pericardium and tore through it to grasp the vital organ. It ran in his hand, squirting blood at him as he put it in his mouth. It was far too small to be of any use. Putting it in his mouth, he walked over to Jetseta, leaned over her, and bit down on the heart so the remaining blood stored inside of it squirted into her face. Once it had emptied, he dropped it into her lap. By now, Jetseta had screamed herself to exhaustion, and could only stare at him with her mouth hanging open. He watched her until she closed her eyes and hung her head, sniffling as the blood and saliva dripped from her chin onto the heart on her lap.

He left for a moment, letting her cry tearlessly for a bit, then morphed out of the darkness again. He stood over the other girl's body, lifted her by the neck, and shook her violently. Jetseta lifted her head in response to a sickly snapping bone; the Creeper had broken her neck with ease. Dropping her body in a heap, he leaned over it and began to scratch into it like a dog digging a whole in the ground. A mixture of blood and soiled organs flew behind him from between his legs, piling up in a sopping and splattering mound. Jetseta attempted to scream, though it ended up being more of a puppy whine. She began struggling with the old chair without prevail as the monster cleared the girl's abdomen of its contents. Within a minute her body was just a hollowed out ribcage suitable for a cat shelter.

It wasn't done though; the creature went back to the pile and scooped a small mound of it into his hands. He sniffed it briefly and carried it over to her. Jetseta had looked away again, flopping her head down to avoid the scenes playing out in front of her. She knew he was standing there, but the sight certainly wasn't worth looking at. It was simple though, with someone of her level of strength he was able to summon her attention with a snarl. For a brief second their eyes met, and then she noticed the mashed guts in his hands. When her mouth fell open, as expected, he stuffed the meat from his hands into her mouth, laughing at her struggling response and the scream that finally found itself. Like he had with Carolyn, he shoved his hand in and force fed the girl. It reminded him of the television shows on the animal channel where the injured bird had to be force fed a piece of fish by some human shoving a finger down its throat. He snickered at the thought, briefly reminded of just how bored he had gotten over the years. Now the bitch looked like the injured eagle, but since she was bigger he just pushed his whole fist in her mouth, cracking her jaw in the process. He waited until she swallowed and pulled it out again, taking a large portion of her tongue with it. Looking at the little flap of muscle, he dangled it in front of her as she gasped for breath.

There had been occasions in the past similar to this, most of which resulted in the victim dying of fear in the process. Their hearts would give out as the adrenaline either depleted or overloaded. He could tell that Jetseta was coming close, as her responses hardly seemed appropriate. She no longer shook the chair or cried, and her scream was waning into a mellow howl. It was becoming boring. Again he force fed her the intestinal marinara and felt her body's repulsion to the act. She sat still with her head hanging, barely moving until a huge heave caused the saucy mixture to pour over the heart still sitting on her lap. Annoyed, the Creeper scraped the vomit back up into his palm and shoved it down her throat where he intended it to go and stay. By the time he pulled away, a trickle of blood was all that was left to show her life. What should have been a flowing river of blood from her severed tongue was hardly a leaky faucet. Becoming more bored, he cracked her neck in the same manner as he had with Breanne, and left her there to rot.

Since this wasn't even one of his residences, he left the bodies there in their positions. He hoped that their souls would continuously be tortured in the afterlife. He didn't care who found them or what anyone would do to them, but they certainly weren't worth taking back to his house to be used as wall decorations. Snickering, he pictured diseased rats eating the eyeballs out of their heads and maggots inching out of their vaginas.

Feeling better about the situation, the predator returned to his truck to search for something that he could actually eat.

---

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus  
**__**Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	10. Escape

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 9 — Escape**

JARZI WAITED FOR the evening breeze to arrive before going out for her nightly fly. She had to get out of that house; too much tension was building up, and the fact that it was mostly over her own existence was beginning to dawn on her. Sighing, she sprang off the roof and into the air, feeling at home as it carried her on its waves. She looked down at the farmlands, seeing corn blowing as if trying to reach up and touch her, but too short to ever have the chance. The breeze ducked away and the yellow plants righted themselves, silent once again.

Repetitive thoughts plagued her mind. It was as if she were having a toss-and-turn sleepless night, thinking about the same issues as normal humans often did—money problems, how to find a job, relationship issues—none of which applied to Jarzi except for the fact that she had no sense of normalcy. Fragments of her life of abuse flashed through her mind. She tried to distract herself, bringing forth the few positive memories that she had to hold on to, but they were rapidly chased away by the incessant pain.

The wind picked up again and carried her weightlessly over a few acres of pines. Nobody would see her out here. Coming to this area was a serene relief. Nature never judged or complained. It just sat silently, existing without opinion.

A loud, echoing explosion ripped apart the silent night. Feeling it before she heard it, her wing snapped painfully against her back, caught by the wind as whatever hit her sent her falling backward toward the trees. Her righting reflex kicked in and she flipped just before landing on a branch of thorny pine needles, then face-first onto the grassy forest floor. The crack of her forehead against the soil finished her descent before any awareness of the situation could set her mind into a state of comprehension, or shock. The wind whistled a soft laugh as it passed through the woods and disappeared.

Pain summoned Jarzi's attention. She pushed herself onto her bruised knees and shook her head, hair flying about her face as if she had just taken a spin in a convertible car during a cyclone. She looked behind her, seeing her wing crooked and broken. Trickling blood had already begun a small puddle beneath her sore body. She discovered a small hole in her wing's central joint. A bullet had passed through the bones and she wouldn't be flying anytime soon, and it had been powerful enough to completely hyperextend her wing from its socket.

Immediately after the realisation, she wished desperately that her dog was there. Her large Rottweiler would protect her. But there was no hope of that now; she was on her own to face whatever lay in wait in the black forest. Instinctively she began to sniff her surroundings; no human or otherwise threatening scent seemed present. She gritted her sharp teeth at the idea of being caught unaware and vulnerable. Stupidity had allowed to her get shot, and she instantly began to blame herself. It seemed as if everything that happened was her own fault.

Perhaps it had only been a farmer looking to hunt some birds. At her altitude in the sky, it would have been easy for a human to mistake her shape for that of a large bird. Human eyes were easily deceived in the dark, or so she had been told.

There was no hope of hunting at this hour, so she pushed herself onto her wobbly feet and turned to walk in the direction she hoped would lead to her house. Righting herself and brushing her clothes clean of dust, she looked up to see a shady, tall form staring back at her. Gasping, she could not get a good look at the figure. Moonlight only let her see his shape—clearly male—and two rows of snarling, white fangs. Dark vibes fell over her and she turned around, scrambling to run and get up to speed. Everything inside her told her to run, for she could not fly, and to get moving as fast as she possibly could.

Jarzi had no idea where she was headed in the forest, but she had to get away. It was becoming darker out; she cursed angrily to herself as she recalled rain in the forecast that evening. How could she have forgotten? The moon was being blockaded by clouds and she was losing sight, and fast. Nearly blind and riddled with fear, she darted between trees and bushes as best she could, barely avoiding another fall several times through the run.

She could hear the man behind her, pursuing her as if he knew the forest layout by heart. Her body was so concentrated on getting her out of there that she couldn't even wonder who was after her, or why. She caught glimpses of him behind her as she turned, but never enough to see his face. The silhouette was mysterious and elusive. He had chosen the best time of night to hunt her, and it was only going to get worse.

Jarzi's heart pounded in her chest and her lungs felt afire, but she kept going. Lactic acid built up quickly in her legs, but it wasn't enough to bring her down. Her hybrid side wouldn't let the human part of her give up. She glanced over her shoulder as often as she could; each time the hunter was closing in, running without sound as if he were powered by an endless fuel. No panting breath, no growl, no tripping on sticks. Rain began to pour down, hitting the trees and falling in random patterns from their leaves. The splashing of feet in mud was her only indication of how far from her the evil presence was. A surge of hot adrenaline propelled her legs forward, and she briefly put some distance between the two of them.

Lightning momentarily lit up the sky, giving her a quick outline of what was in front of her. Pines littered the forest floor in all directions, showing no sign of the forest's perimeters. She felt as if she was not going to escape. Her heavy panting was a sure sign that she was weaker than the man chasing her. Part of her willed her to turn and fight, but she felt there was no chance. Even at this age, Jarzi was still unaware of all her abilities. Being able to eat and reform her body would be no help here, especially with the dead weight of a broken wing hanging from her back.

The chase continued for what seemed like forever in slow motion. Branches hit her from all directions as she ran through them while weeds threatened to wrap her feet and throw her to the ground. She glanced again over her shoulder to see the black figure jump up and spring off the trunk of a dead, branchless tree. He landed on four legs before reverting to a biped. He was approaching quickly, menacing eyes glaring at her hungrily.

A fresh bolt of lightning lit up the sky, revealing the end of the forest. The trees were becoming smaller and it appeared as if a corn field was on the horizon. Jarzi was thankful; there would be no problem navigating through the corn stalks. Perhaps she had a chance yet. She tore through the trees, hearing the figure close in on her. He was only a few yards behind her now, and his foot steps were becoming louder in the rain-soaked soil.

The corn field was a welcome sight; Jarzi felt as if she had been in the forest for hours, though it had only been a few minutes. Her body was wearing down as the rain and wind beat at her. She needed to stop this soon before she ran out of energy. Hope began to wear thin; the man behind her wasn't going to tire out anytime soon. The wet field was easy on her feet, though through her own fatigue she failed to pick up speed. Rain cooled her boiling body and her black hair stuck to her face, dripping and spraying water behind her as she ran. Her heart sank as she looked forward during another flash of lightning; she was unfamiliar with this area and didn't know where the road was, or if it was even nearby. A house flashed into view in the distance, lights showing its location after the sky darkened again. She ran for it, forgetting all about her alien appearance. Nobody would let her in their residence if they saw her face. She would have to break in if she wanted to find a weapon.

Jarzi eyed the house carefully. It appeared through the heavy downpour that the front door was screened in and open. She kept running, glancing quickly behind her. The angry man was exposing his thin fangs, only feet away from her now. She aimed for the door and kicked it in. A man inside, who was sitting in a rocker reading a paper, jumped up in response and screamed. Without noticing, Jarzi slammed the wooden front door against the hanging screen door and locked it on the bolt. No sooner had she locked it did the man come crashing against it.

The old farmer of about fifty was already out of the room, screaming obscenities about the end of the world. Jarzi continued to ignore him and looked through the room. There was nothing in there that she could use to fight her attacker. Stopping the run forced her lungs to try and recover. Pain rushed from her injured wing and a throbbing burn began to make itself known in her legs. Loud thudding noises came from the door. The man who was trying to kill her was kicking down the door. She gasped and ran through the room against her body's angry protest. In the kitchen, she found a meat dagger, grabbed it, and ran. Perhaps she could get away before the man knew she had fled. Hope grew again, and she took the chance by leaping through an open window on her back.

Landing on her side, she cringed and rubbed at her elbow. She was not used to falling or being unable to fly. Flying was her main method of speed, and she couldn't even use it. Then she was back on her tired feet and running, holding the knife tightly in her fist. The storm had suddenly become more violent, throwing rain at her like a billion needles trying to stab her. She did not hear the man's footsteps behind her. Looking back, there was nothing. She slowed to a trot and breathed in rough, hyperventilating breaths. Her mouth instinctively opened to allow rain to pour in. The drink was prickly and long, but it was worth it. The water acted as her fuel.

Jarzi sat for a long, appreciated few minutes. Her heart continued to race, her breathing was still loud and painful, and her wing felt like it was going to fall off. She almost wished it would. Then before she knew it, she was beginning to think of how she would get out. Retracing her steps would throw off the scent trail for her attacker—she could run over where she had come, and it wouldn't smell any different. Through the woods, she knew her way back home. If she continued through the man's back yard, anything could await her on new grounds.

A blood-curdling scream sent Jarzi to her feet again, and as much as her body protested, she began to run. Her pursuer had gotten into the house and discovered the man. His innocent screams told her that he was being murdered. The desperate pleas for help saddened her, but she had to escape. She felt bad, but there wasn't anything she could do. The cries ceased as abruptly as they had begun. Wanting to cry, Jarzi pushed away tears and ran back through the wet cornfield. The stalks whipped against her face, but the wind came from behind. She was being lightly pushed. It felt like it was helping her, and she took advantage of it.

A high-pitched shriek echoed into the night as she entered the forest line. She looked back; the man was in fresh pursuit. His tall silhouette was entering the field, and he disappeared under the height of the plants. Jarzi took off again, wishing terribly that she could fly. She clenched the knife tightly and pushed ahead. She had a good lead, but she was beginning to slow again. She prayed that she'd find the road soon.

By the time she found the exit, the evil being was on her tail again, almost within arms distance. She whimpered as her energy waned, needing to be replenished. She needed food, badly, and there was no hope of finding any out here. The man chasing her was beginning to pant, only now after a hunt that had lasted for well over two miles, maybe three. The road was in clear view, just past another small field. She pushed through the thick vegetation before her legs buckled on the hard pavement of the East 9. She collapsed on her stomach, panting heavily. Exhaustion had gotten the best of her. She prepared to be shot, stabbed, or worse.

But nothing came. She forced her neck to lift her head, which felt like it was hundreds of pounds. The man was standing at the foot of the field, pacing through a puddle of muddy soil and grass. His head was turned to her, but she could not make out his features. Her body shook with fatigue against the road, rain splattering off of it. Why didn't he come onto the road and take her out?

A car was approaching from the west; he didn't seem to care. Jarzi tried to move into the other lane so it wouldn't hit her. The car showed no signs of slowing, and probably couldn't even see her in the torrential downpour. Bracing herself, Jarzi rolled over, but the car flew over her left ankle, screeching after the hit. It slowed for a second, decided that it must have run over a branch, and accelerated. Jarzi looked over to her attacker, too weak to scream in pain, but he was gone. It was as if the bright headlights had scared him off. He had disappeared within seconds like a ghost walking through a wall.

Jarzi stayed on the road, unable to move. The mysterious figure did not return.

Tired but alive, Jarzi looked up the road. Home was about a mile or so away, but her muscles wouldn't budge. Pure darkness rose over both horizons, indicating that she was safe from traffic for at least a few minutes. Lying in the middle of the road with a broken wing and now a crushed foot wasn't going to do her any good, no matter how deserted that highway was.

A new realisation hit Jarzi like a ton of bricks. Even without seeing any facial features, there was something familiar about the man who had terrorised her. Something about his build, his speed, and those rows of needles lining his gums made the villain all the more recognisable. Who was it, and why hadn't she smelled them in the woods?

Even with all those facts and the burning million dollar question, Jarzi's broken body wouldn't have it, and she passed out in the middle of the East 9.

--

**_The Truthful Lie_** copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus  
**__**  
**__**Jeepers Creepers **copyright © __**Victor Salva**_


	11. Mack the Knife

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

If anyone has ideas or suggestions for things you'd like to see in the story, feel free to email me! I don't bite...

**Chapter 10 — Mack the Knife**

_SHE STANDS ON the sloped, grassy knoll outside a ravaged city that burns angrily to the ground. Ash already litters most of the ground, but terrified peasants and their children run about screaming for help amidst the chaos. Nobody hears them. Nobody responds. Long, billowing towers of smoke rise up from the remains of broken and hallowed out buildings. She can smell the fear of the people that intertwines with the odour of charred wood. _

_"It's a pity, isn't it?" a voice asks from her side. She turns to see a creature like herself standing there, a near mirror image of her wearing the thick, purple robes that would only be reserved for figures of royalty. She stares at the carnage with tears in her eyes, but her face tries to remain strong. "My city, my life, my family...All gone. They've taken it all from me."_

_"Who is doing this?" Jarzi demands._

_"The Skeleton People, as we've come to call them," the woman replies. She turns to face Jarzi and blinks away clingy tears. Her amber eyes glaze with fresh tears waiting to fall. "They come from the Underworld. My people don't stand a chance. They're all being killed."_

_"Go help them!"_

_"I've tried! I sent out the military. I tried to fight their leader myself. He defeated me, even after I regenerated time and time again. I can no longer go on. I am a weak leader; it was not my destiny to save my people." _

_Jarzi sighs and looks back toward the city. She sees the 'skeleton people'—thin demonic figures on horseback with animal skulls fitting over their heads; they decapitate the fleeing citizens with swift swipes of their swords and mount their heads on stakes. Two in particular capture her attention—a pair of winged, black-eyed creatures ordering the rest around in a language she doesn't understand._

_"They'll continue to raid cities like this. I can only hope someone will come along who can stop them, someday..." the woman trails off as more tears escape her eyes. Jarzi stares sadly at the woman—so powerful and pathetic all at once._

_The leader of the Skeleton People then spots them and rides his horse up the green hillside, travelling so quickly that his motion melts into the wind and becomes one with it. His figure shifts into an opaque black shadow that glares at them with fiery red eyes. He targets the orange-eyed creature and leaps from the horse, his sword aflame and raised to attack her. The faceless demon then strikes her through the heart, leaving the sword embedded in her chest and evaporates into the air. _

_"Help him, Jarzi," she whispers, holding the hilt of the burning sword._

_"Who? Don't die! You can't give up now!" _

_"You will know, Jarzi. You will know." The sword begins to glow with a screaming white light, becoming brighter and brighter until..._

--

The blinding light that approached pulled Jarzi out of her exhausted state of slumber. Startled, she jumped and realised it had all been a dream. It was simply a game played by her imagination, and any significance it may have held was quickly evaporated and was replaced with fresh, nauseating fear. Her eyes tried to focus; headlights were glaring at her like ancient judgmental eyes from an old, rusted vehicle. They continued to bear down on her, staring angrily from the ticking, yet calm and waiting engine that held them. She clenched her eyelids shut, but the light was relentless. The huge vehicle was only a few feet from her broken body and at any moment it could come by and crack it some more.

Again, Jarzi flinched. Something had touched her shoulder as a swift, light jab. Too tired to move to any significant degree, she blinked and tried to peer over her shoulder. She was lying on her side with her right arm pinned and numb under her ribs. Her destroyed wing hung as dead weight from her scapula, splayed out and sticking to the wet pavement. The jab came again, harder this time and more demanding of her attention. With what little energy she had, she strained her neck further to look, falling over onto her back in the process. The broken wing crunched, pushing an angry growl from her throat. She squinted and saw the Creeper standing before her, his features perfectly accentuated in the ice cream truck's screaming headlights.

With rain sprinkling calmly around her, Jarzi blinked and stared at him, wondering if it was at all possible that he could be standing there. Too tired to speak, her mouth moved stupidly to make a noise, imitating a sick chewing motion as if some poisonous insect had exploded in her mouth. She couldn't believe what she was looking at—a practical epitome of herself in male form. She tried to inch away; he reeked of blood and hate, as if the piercing look in his icy blue eyes couldn't emphasise it enough. Her torn wing caught under her body, hindering her movement. The man knelt before her and grinned sadistically...or so it seemed. Suddenly remembering the knife in her hand, she instinctively brought it over her shoulder and tried to plunge it weakly into his flesh. He grabbed her armed hand as if it were a flimsy noodle and twisted it just enough for it to lose control of the knife. The blade fell harmlessly to the ground and began to bead up with raindrops, skewing the reflections it created into blobbed, alien forms.

Jarzi collapsed again, her blood sugar so low she was beginning to tremble. The look she gave the Creeper was one so pathetic he almost pitied her, but the sentiment was foreign enough to be just out of reach. He stared at her for a long moment, even after she had lowered her head to stare at the road out of shame. He pondered what to do with her as Jarzi was busy wondering where he had come from, who he was, and if he knew anything about the fanged man who had been chasing her earlier that night. For all she knew, it could have been the same person. How long had she been lying out in the middle of the road, anyways? She was sickened at the thought that cars could have been driving by, mistaking her for a wasted drunk that had been dumped on the side of the road. Or, they had caught a glimpse of her wings and drove away with the pedal to the metal.

Then, as if she weighed nothing, the Creeper picked her up and carried her to his truck. He dumped her roughly into the passenger seat, and instantly the fear inside her boiled up again. It was the same gnawing terror centred in the pit of her stomach that rose without substance to her dry throat. The smell of rotting death lingered eerily in the cab, and it was so thick that if it had a colour it would have been even darker than the blackest black.

Jarzi watched him climb easily into his driver's seat and start the engine. The key was missing; instead he used what resembled a cast of it made of ivory or bone, fashioned at one end to look like the stub of a very large dog biscuit. The fact that it was actually some unfortunate victim's metatarsal remained as oblivious to her as the pile of freshly killed bodies in the back that were waiting to be stitched back together. As he drove away, she closed her eyes and wished that one of her abilities was to magically absorb energy from the air like a living solar powered lamp. Life would never be that easy, however. She sighed heavily and stared at the window to watch the world fly past her.

The Creeper watched his daughter carefully, knowing the road so well that he didn't even have to look where he was going. He drove slower than usual, wishing she would look at him. She didn't; she remained transfixed on the passing fields and trees. She leaned her head against the window and stared with a look just as dead as the bodies he propped on his walls. They gaped, blank and desperate. It was all he could see—pain. With her broken body and terrifying appearance, she could have easily been classified as a sentient zombie.

After a while he started to whistle _Jeepers Creepers_, as he often did while he was driving aimlessly looking for vulnerable prey. It was his favourite tune, the one from where the humans had come up with his name. That is, the humans that actually lived to tell of their encounters with him. Jarzi looked at him and her green eyes lit up a bit; it seemed genuine against her rough exterior, but it was a spark of joy nonetheless. Eventually sleep claimed her again in a fraught attempt to conserve energy. Her body was weak without nutrients; he'd have to find her some food to heal before he went home for the night.

--

Jarzi found herself in unfamiliar surroundings when she woke up. She felt no radiating pain as she sat up to evaporate the situation. The room she was in was dim and quiet, lit only with the shards of light that slithered through broken blinds in the windows. She was lying in someone's bed, which happened to be far more comfortable than the broken futon she was used to from her house. A heavy, black comforter kept her warm with her feet exposed. Seeing both of her feet intact startled her; how had she managed to eat anything and re-grow her foot while she had been unconscious? Curious, she flexed her wing against the pillow and found that it had also been repaired. Had she not remembered the attack, there would have been no scars to indicate what had gone down last night. Looking over her shoulder, Jarzi found the formerly damaged joint to be swollen unnaturally; perhaps whatever she had eaten hadn't been all that healthy after all. It ached slightly and she decided to just relax it for a while.

She ignored the odd swelling as the questions regarding the last night's events burned like a wildfire in her mind's eye. She absentmindedly turned to see the creature from the rusty van next to her, sleeping so soundly that she could barely hear him breathe. She inched away as far as she could without falling off the bed, scared that he might come after her. He slept in a sitting position, a pile of pillows behind his back to support his mammoth wings. Jarzi found herself staring at him, unsure of how she really felt under the layers of mixed fear and amazement. Finally, after so many years, she'd actually found someone like her, and it was scaring her to death. The memory of Trish telling her that there were no others like her and Xavier then surfaced through the fog of emotions, and she realised with a pang of anger that she had been lied to.

Her father snarled as he exhaled, revealing the bloodstained daggers in his mouth. She briefly recalled the man from the forest; his teeth were also pointed and thin as needles, but there was something different about his from the person sitting next to her. She couldn't quite pinpoint it, and decided to leave the topic alone until later. Jarzi was partially tempted to wake him, but her fear paralysed her. Staring, she admired him for a long time in his torn blue jeans and tattered cowboy hat. She wished she could see his face better; he had pulled the rim of the hat over his eyes to shield any light from disturbing them. All she could see of his face were his teeth and ears. She sighed loudly, more questions irritating her like fleas on a dog.

Then it clicked, it hadn't been the similarities in teeth that separated her attacker from the being sleeping next to her; this shady person was far more built than the one from the forest. The tracker was muscular, no doubt, but he was more lengthy and slender, especially his arms. Other than that, the darkness had given her little to go on. Still, there was something familiar about this one. There was no questioning on that one; she and this alien figure had met before.

Jarzi then realised that she wasn't wearing the clothes she had been in last night. Instead, she was dressed in someone's blue cotton nightgown. She could smell whoever had worn it last, even under the strong odour of overdone perfume. Wanting to get out of it, she looked for her clothes. They were in no obvious location in this room, nor were her boots. The most disturbing and disgusting part of it all was that this complete stranger had stripped her while she had been unconscious, seen _everything_, and they knew absolutely nothing about one another. She hadn't even talked to him, or heard his voice. He was still a nameless entity, and she didn't even want to consider what else he may have done while she had been out.

The shiny kitchen knife that she had stolen from the old man's house was lying on the nightstand beside her. She grabbed it and held it as tightly as she had before; it was her only means of protection at this point, and she hoped to whatever high power there may be out there that she wouldn't have to use it. Fear was beginning to build up again, right in the pit of her stomach, and it would soon get the best of her if she couldn't get it under control. It crept over her skin, giving her chills that made her pull the blanket over her again and hug her knees like a little child wanting to disappear.

Fear was the last thing Jarzi needed right now, just as it was for anyone else who met the Creeper quickly discovered. He inhaled deeply and opened his eyes after catching its scent, startling her so that she flinched even further beneath the blanket than she already was. The knife was being clenched with such force that it would have broken had it been made of plastic or other flimsy material. The sturdy metal burned in her hand, eager to stab and cut.

The Creeper righted his cowboy hat and looked at her with sleepy eyes. It was the first decent look she'd gotten at him since last night, and at the moment he didn't seem _too_ sinister. He rubbed at his eyes and groaned miserably, then shifted so to tell her she had his full attention. He sat cross-legged and stared at her inquisitively, expressionless besides the obvious curiosity. Jarzi found herself admiring his muscles again.

"What do you want?" she asked shyly with a voice so soft and timid that it took the Creeper by surprise. He had never heard her speak, and this certainly wasn't what he was expecting.

He didn't answer for a long minute. Averting his eyes, he tried to think of how to reply. There wasn't anything in particular that he wanted from her, but he wasn't about to let her go back out onto the street by saying the wrong thing.

"Hello?" she pressed, her voice building a bit of boldness. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I wasn't going to leave you in the middle of the road," he said flatly. His voice caught her off-guard as well. Expecting a gruff, deep voice, he surprised her by being relatively soft spoken. Under that calmness, though, she heard and felt that chilling rage that accompanied his everyday personality.

Clearly, verbal communication wasn't his strong point. He frowned at the look he received at his statement.

"Umm, thanks, I guess." Jarzi started biting her nails out of nervousness, a bad habit she had carried on since teething. "Who are you? ...What are you?"

"I...I am what I am, I am what people call me, and I'm hungry." She laughed at his response, and for the first time ever, he saw her smile. Every other encounter he had had with her had produced every opposite expression imaginable. Even when he spied on her from his other house, he never saw her smile.

"I'm hungry, too."

"Then I will bring you something. What do you eat?" He hoped she wouldn't press the questions about him anymore. He hated being interrogated.

"Umm...Anything, I guess. I'm not picky." He then stood up and went for the door, picking up his old black trench coat from the floor on his way out.

"Wait!" she said suddenly; he turned back to her as he put the frayed jacket on. "How did you fix my ankle and my wing last night?"

"Shoved meat down your throat...Quite easily."

Jarzi cringed, and then her demeanour changed to one of anger. Her white eyebrows tensed and her nostrils flared. She seemed a bit more realistic to him then, but it was only a slight potential buried beneath a scared, defensive child. "What did you do with my clothes?!" she demanded angrily.

"They're in my truck, soiled with your blood." He walked out before she could protest further.

Jarzi waited for him to leave. When she was sure he wasn't coming back in anytime soon, she stood and walked into the hall to explore the house, knife still in hand. It was an old Victorian, collecting cobwebs and dust in areas she was sure the creature had no use for. The kitchen was just outside the bedroom, where she found an elaborate collection of daggers mounted on the wall. Looking closely at them, she found disturbing images of murder and pain carved into their hilts. The knives weren't just in the kitchen; they were all over the house—hanging on walls, propped on tables, or encased in glass cabinets.

After the kitchen and some kind of dust-coated office, Jarzi found the bathroom. The reflection that stared back at her from the mirror disgusted her; she wanted to punch it and make it go away for good. She looked down at her arms and saw the healing scars—constant reminders of the times she had felt so depressed that she had slashed her wrists. Even emptying her entire circulatory system wouldn't kill her; her body would force itself to survive no matter what. Jarzi hated what she was and all the mysteries that came with it. Frustrated, she took the meat knife and reopened one of the scars and let it drain into the sink.

Her reflection was growling back at her from the mirror as she plunged the tip of the dagger back into the wound. She then made a dent in her other arm, tears forming in her eyes as the blood flowed down the sink's drain in streaky, emotional rivers. Eventually the arteries managed to clot themselves; they were used to needing to immediately heal. She had been cutting for years without anyone finding out. The sentiment soon waned to numbness and she washed the blood out of the sink with fresh tap water.

She decided to take a shower before the Creeper returned and noticed that he had already found clothes for her. He had them folded beside the toilet—some dark blue jeans and a plain red tank top. Looking at the sizes, they would be a bit small, but it was better than the skimpy nightgown. Taking the knife, she slashed crude splits in the back of the shirt for her wings and wondered again who they belonged to. The scent was the same. Perhaps this person had lived there, or still was? The thought disturbed her that someone else could possibly be in the house.

Jarzi showered for a while, taking her time to carefully de-mat her black hair that had become an atrocious mess during her ordeal. The lack of conditioner in the shower didn't help, but she made due with what she had available. After the shower, she dressed and decided to try and find the person whose scent was on her clothes. She passed through the more familiar rooms, sniffing the air and objects that would commonly be handled by humans, but there was nothing. Her search brought her to one closed door. She tried the knob, but it was locked by a deadbolt meant for outside doors. More questions, now about what could be behind the door, attacked her mind with screaming curiosity.

Continuing on, she found a room at the far end of the house. In all the other rooms, the blinds or curtains had been wide open to let light in, but this room was blocked off from the world with black velvet curtains. She searched for a light switch, found it, and gasped quietly at what she saw when the ceiling light flickered on. The room was empty except for a painting on the north wall across from the entrance. It was the portrait of the same woman she had met in her dream—the orange-eyed creature of her species whose village had been burned to ashes. Below the huge painting was a small alter holding half-burnt candles of various colours and containers of finely ground herbs.

Jarzi stared at the picture, taking in every fine detail that had been painted into it. The woman's expression seemed more serious and calm in this depiction, whereas in her dream she had been angry, frightened, and upset. Her features gave her a motherly yet protective facade. On her head was some kind of jewelled headdress which incorporated her long hair into it as tightly wound curls and braids. The rest of her thick locks hung loosely behind her head, almost completely hiding the jointed tips of her folded wings. The orange eyes gently stared at her. The eyebrows of the mysterious lady were arched to accentuate the colour and expression of her irises. The blue and purple dress she had on emphasised how vibrant and full of life they were. In the dream, none of that was present.

Who was she? Clearly, she must have held some level of authority with her elaborate clothing. Where was she now and what association was she to the man who owned this house?

The light snapped off from behind her; she turned and saw the creature glaring at her from the doorframe. She approached him cautiously, feeling inferior under his deadly leer of hatred, but as soon as she walked out he shut the door and led her outside.

"Go eat that," he said, pointing to a fresh dog carcass lying in the grass. "There's an apple tree out back as well as all the corn if you eat that stuff."

"Thanks," she said quietly, then dragged the poor animal's body behind the house where he couldn't see her. She ate it quietly without much chewing, watching around her constantly for signs of life.

When she was through, Jarzi walked back around the house and found her father sitting on the rear bumper of his truck etching at something with a knife. The truck was instantly recognisable as the one her and Xavier used to see when they were kids. Had this person really been just across the street the whole time, without her knowing about it? Could any of this possibly get even stranger?

He saw her approaching and threw what was in his hands into the back of the truck. He stood and closed the large doors, then watched her awkwardly.

"What's your name?" she asked. Her voice had gained a bit of confidence since he last heard it about an hour ago.

"Call me what you want," he replied.

"What? Don't you have a name?"

"No."

Jarzi raised an eyebrow at him. "You're lying to me," she snapped.

"Not really," he said. "Most of the things I'm called aren't words I'm too fond of."

"Like what?"

"Don't worry about it. Call me what you want."

"Umm, well, okay." She pondered the offer for a moment. "All those knives you have in the kitchen remind me of the story of Mackie Messer from pre-World War II in Germany. If you've heard or read the story, you'll know about the serial killer in it. So I'll call you Mack the Knife, the English translation."

He grinned. "I've heard the story. It fits me better than you think."

She shrugged. "Though the shark's teeth may be lethal, still you see them white and red. But you won't see Mackie's flick knife, 'cause he's slashed you and you're dead." Her father smiled enthusiastically again and chuckled. For the first time she saw his true evil, though just briefly as he accepted the name from her. He motioned her to go into the house, thinking that maybe now he was ready to talk.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus**__**  
Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	12. Caveat

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

One of my reviewers asked where I came up with some of the character names. Since he doesn't have a working e-mail, I'll just answer it publicly in case anyone else is curious.

Jetseta's name came from a person I know in real life. She was one of my best childhood friends, but when she graduated from high school she became an alcoholic after her father committed suicide. She then went behind my back and did terrible things to me, so I have lost all respect for her. When I was trying to think up a name for Jetseta's character, her face was the first thing that sprung to mind.  
Jeff's name also came from a person I actually know. Jeff Denthar is a guy who took me in when I was in and out of jail during my "bad years". He used to tell me that I wasn't a monster, that my mental illness was the culprit for my bad behaviour. In my story, Jeff believes that Xavier and Jarzi are not monsters either, no matter how evil they look.  
Xavier's name was my boyfriend's idea. Since it looked cool, I decided to use it.  
Jarzi's first name was my friend Sara's idea. I showed her a picture I'd drawn of Jarzi, and asked her if she could think of a good name for her. Jarzi was what she came up with, and I liked it. Her middle name, Morsa, is my middle name. It's so dark looking. XD  
Rithyrn is a name I made up. It's pronounced Rith-eern.  
The Creeper's nickname, Mack, is from "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer." And yes, he DOES have a real name, which will show up later.  
The names of the other minor characters (Breanne, Carolyn, Allen, and anyone I missed) were just whatever I could think of at the time.

Plenty more characters will be appearing, so I will just update the name list as I go.

**Chapter 11 — Caveat**

SHARP RAIN NIPPED at Xavier Denthar's face as he walked the concrete path to what had once been Ruth and Thomas Cuddigan's home. He ascended the steps to the front porch, his head practically paralysed in a straight, forward position. In his hand he carried a large glass bottle containing a thin transparent liquid that resembled water. His once vibrant orange eyes had dulled to a nearly blind, frosted blue that accompanied his possession. An emaciated grey hand trembled as it gripped the knob to the front door and twisted it. Resistance from the door's lock immobilised the knob, frustrating him. Stepping back, he kicked the door so hard that it flew open with one blow. Where the energy came from to throw such momentum into the painted wood, even he didn't know.

He stepped in and looked around, his eyes just able to make out various dark shapes and shadows. He heard a soft laughter echo inside his head but brought himself to ignore it. Like a robot he was guided to walk through the hallways without thinking, unable to notice the power of staring dead eyes that watched him from the ceilings and walls. The possessor led him to the basement door, and he marched quietly down the stairs and into a musty, dank room.

Exploring silently, he waited for briefing. With only fragments of his soul remaining conscious, he could hardly think for himself and didn't bother trying. He didn't even know what he was getting into. What had once been an innocent, rather timid little boy was now a vacuous zombie, controlled by something he couldn't possibly understand. His soul was buried beneath the dominating influence that he could not escape. The dictating force would never let him go, and he'd come to accept that incoherently.

_"Empty that bottle. Hurry up!"_

Xavier did as the voice ordered; he felt around since his eyes were misleading and came in contact with the petrified face of one of the Creeper's many victims. He poured a bit of the bottle's contents onto it and heard it begin to sizzle and smoke. He blinked, trying to see past his cataracts. He poured a bit more of the acid onto other bodies and waited for the sweltering to stop. It took several minutes for all the acid to do its work. The once perfectly preserved remains were reduced to skeletons that stared at him with glass eyes held in place by glue that hadn't been reached by the acid's destructive rampage.

_"He will know the significance of skeletons,"_ the voice whispered.

The vacant teenager then capped the bottle and put it in his pocket, continuing to blankly stare.

Another quiet laugh then formed inside his head and increased in volume. The louder it became, the more evil it felt. Xavier put his bony hands over his ears to no avail; the laughing was not actually audible from the environment but right there, blaring in his brain's mind. He swore angrily until suddenly, his vision returned full force.

Glass eyes glared straight through him, giving him a sense of inferiority so great his knees nearly buckled under his fragile weight. The skulls that harboured them barely clung to their gaping mandibles as what remained of the acid dissolved the enamel of their whitened teeth. Xavier blinked and looked up at the ceiling, then to the other wall. Naked bodies covered almost every inch, sewn to crude wallpaper made out of human skin.

Unable to speak, the fifteen year old whimpered like a terrified puppy and began to back out of the room that had once been a comfortable place for the elderly to relax. As he tiptoed backward, all of the glass eyeballs shifted in their sockets and followed him across the cellar until he bumped into a rather unfriendly feeling surface. Looking behind and up, he came nose-to-nose with a victim that had apparently fought hard to the death. The dead man snarled silently at him with a face battered with both healed scars and ones that had barely enough time to bleed before an untimely massacre.

"Hahaha..." The dark voice came from somewhere behind him. Xavier whipped around to meet it, but saw only the deceased.

"Xavier..." A female voice this time—it came from behind him again. He spun around and again saw only the scarred man and the companions that were stitched to him.

"Son of a bitch!" Another voice shouted. He kept spinning as the taunting voices increased. At first he wondered if it was Rithyrn playing more tricks on him, but these voices were right there in the room.

"Hahaha..." The first voice laughed again.

"You fucking _monster_!" Another cursed.

They came at him from all angles now, wafting through the air as if they were right on top of him. He still saw nobody, until he realised that the voices were coming from the dead bodies. Their eyes continued to follow him as he kept trying to step away and avoid them, only to walk into more screams and curses. They laughed, screamed, jeered at, and slandered him. On and on they went, inexorably repeating themselves in a vicious cycle until he felt like his head would explode. Eventually he got enough grip on himself to bolt up the stairs and for the door. The noises continued until he threw himself onto the road, head in hands.

After a few seconds, the voices died out and he was able to recover. He looked up from his huddled location in the road and blinked, taking a long pause as he tried to collect what thoughts he still had control over. Ahead, he saw the house he had grown up in and began to contemplate trying to go over there. Perhaps his proxy father or grandmother could help him. He knew they'd try; even if they really didn't have the answers he needed, they'd still try.

_"Get back here, NOW!"_

Thoughts of returning home were instantly shattered. Xavier's eyes dulled to a hazy blue again and he turned towards the cornfield with his head down. He scuffed into it without looking back. The images of all those silent bodies continued to pick at his brain like scavenging vultures. Unrelenting voices began to follow him again, driving what sanity he still had into further oblivion.

--

"I've seen that van before!" Jarzi said, pointing to the BEATNGU. That little girl voice seemed to be having trouble escaping her presence. "My brother and I used to see it all the time when we were little."

"I drive this road a lot," her father replied flatly. "Little trouble from humans, out here."

Jarzi chuckled. "Yeah, but we used to see it right across the street from us. Have you really lived there _all_ these years?"

"Perhaps."

"I live in the grey two-story up by the state line. My grandma has a blue Neon and my dad has an old Ford F-150. Does that sound familiar?"

The Creeper's voice lowered to a dark hiss that scraped at her nerves like sandpaper. "In that case, _yes_." Jarzi flinched under his powerful glare. She could feel it bore through her just as easily as she could see it.

Fearful, Jarzi turned away and looked wide-eyed toward the road, contemplating what to do. Her apprehension was beginning to radiate like heat from an atomic bomb and there was no doubt in her mind that the monster standing behind her was well aware of it. "I should be leaving now," she said as seriously as she could. "Thank you for your help. I appreciate it." She began to walk toward the road when his large hand closed around her arm with just enough force to stop her in her tracks. Jarzi froze and felt a soft breeze of unnaturally cold air cut through her thick hair.

"No," he whispered in her ear, his voice soft as silk now, masking the insidious power it held. "Stay." She wheeled in her tracks to face him and gave the angriest look she could muster. "Why do you fear me?" he asked. He inhaled the delicious sent of her newfound trepidation. "If I planned to hurt you, I would have by now."

Jarzi blinked. "Yeah," she responded shakily. "I guess you're right. Sorry. I've just been...through a lot."

"Understandable," he said bluntly.

_There is something seriously wrong with this person_, Jarzi thought to herself as she watched him walk toward his house. Hesitant, she followed from a distance. Not only could she smell his deadly ire, his attempt to conceal it was quite poor. As if that wasn't bad enough, there was a load of other scents following him as well, some of which clearly partnered themselves with his hatred, others so different and imposing they caused her to question its existence entirely. Her head spun with confusion and she snorted the concoction of odours away.

Ominous as he was, Jarzi decided to consider the admonition in his voice and keep it safely in the back of her mind. Besides his awkward behaviours, he had yet to give her any real reason to believe that his motives were malicious. There were few others that she could think of who had actually helped her in life, and the mere fact that he had taken time out of his day to lend her a hand was enough to keep him on her good side, for now. She then found it morbidly amusing that she had survived an encounter with one terrifying creature just to wake up beside another less than eight hours later.

Mack was sitting on an old creaky rocker when Jarzi finally approached him. What little courage she had tightened inside of her would have to hold together a little while longer. He gave her a quick but neutral glance before motioning toward a chair to his left for her to sit in. She did; by then his focus was turned to a small murder of crows that were aggregating on his lawn. They cawed and gave them obtuse looks with their mouths gaping open.

"Dumb birds," Jarzi muttered.

He nodded. "Are you better now?"

"Yes, I'm just tired." The sudden temptation to yawn welled up in her throat. She decided not to mention the aching in her wing's joints and propped her feet up on one of the porch's support beams. It was probably just unhealthy food after all; perhaps what he'd given her to eat had suffered from arthritis and passed it on to her. The temporary assumption seemed fitting enough. The scent of the woman who had last worn the blue jeans and shirt attacked her nose again. Past the obvious indication that a human female owned these clothes, there were no other clues pointing to who this mystery person was.

The Creeper took a tiny knife out of his pocket and began to indolently utilise it as a primitive toothpick. Jarzi sighed and stared out at the road, her mind roiling. The questions burned inside her, but her anxiety was too great to ask any. The angst felt like a vine growing up and around her neck, making it difficult to breathe.

"You may as well ask your questions," Mack said after a while. He knew what she'd ask. Everyone he encountered seemed to love attacking him with questions, as long as they managed to find the voice to do so.

Jarzi huffed. "I suppose you can read my mind them." She turned to snap a glare, idly ringing her hands with anxiety.

"No, I can just smell how uneasy you are." He set the knife down and turned his attention to her again. Distracted from their conversation, he ogled her from head to toe as if she were a piece of meat. His blue eyes were filled with a new kind of intensity—one Jarzi had never experienced but had a slight understanding of nonetheless. That's what she got for accepting clothes that didn't fit.

He appeared older to her at that moment under the sunlight that brightened the colours of everything it touched. _Just how old is he, anyways?_

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked. Her voice drew him back to Earth and he stared blankly into her eyes. She knew better; he had been doing that on purpose. Falling for a "spacing out" excuse wasn't going to happen. He flashed his bloodstained teeth at her as innocently as he could.

More crows landed in the yard. Their united cawing sounded like a twenty-way argument. A car flew by driving so fast it appeared to be on a mission, but the crows weren't fazed. Its driver seemed transfixed on getting to his destination, not giving them so much as a glance as he sped away.

"You're a pig!" Jarzi snapped. Mack snorted and turned to his truck where more crows were perched and picked the tiny dagger up again. It made soft scraping noises as he picked the remains of his last victim from his teeth.

Another motorist drove by, easily pushing ninety miles per hour.

"Did you make all the knives?" Jarzi asked. The Creeper knew she was desperate for a subject change.

"Yes," he answered, grinning proudly. "Every one of them."

"They're awesome," she complimented. "Scary, but cool. I looked at a few while you were gone. I wish I had that kind of talent."

"It takes years of practice."

"Yeah, I bet it takes you a while to get just one done."

"Not really. A few days for one, at most. Bone is easy to work with." There was no excuse for letting those bodies go to waste. Human remains always had their uses, beyond dinner.

"They're all made of _bone_?"

"Most of them. I'll carve out of anything, if I can find something decent."

"Wow! Well, they're really awesome."

The praised smile remained on his face. "They're more _awesome_ when they're being used."

Jarzi shuttered. "I'm sure they are. Just don't use them on me."

The Creeper laughed. "I use them on my food." _If this girl only knew... _

"Umm, great...I guess."

He held the tiny knife up to her, letting it dangle from the blade between his fingers. "Throw it."

"What?"

"Throw it. Hit one of those damn birds."

"Umm..." Jarzi took the stiletto and tossed it to one of the birds. It clattered harmlessly to the green turf about a foot away from the feathered flock.

"No wonder you got beat up last night," he said sarcastically.

"Hey! I don't know how to throw knives!"

Mack pulled another dagger from his jacket, this one about the size of the meat knife she had stolen the night before. Its blade looked so sharp that it was a wonder it didn't cut right through the tattered fabric that held it. "You do it like _this_."

He brought the dagger up over his head, holding its hilt loosely between his fingers and whipped it at the crow with such speed that Jarzi's eyes could hardly follow it. It pierced the bird's abdomen and pinned it into the soil beneath without even making a sound. Rouge feathers were tossed up from the fresh, dead body and carried lightly into the wind before settling back into the grass. Cawing and neurotic flapping ensued as the other birds took to the sky to avoid a similar fate.

"Whoa!" Jarzi exclaimed. "You're good!"

"See? Easy."

"Maybe for you. I'm one for guns."

"Guns are clumsy weapons," Mack said. "Loading and having to aim by holding it up to your eye level takes too long. Your prey will get away if you stall. Just throw a knife and you can get it right where you want it and without all that dawdling."

"If you say so! But I don't have that kind of talent...or speed."

"Yes you do, you just don't know how to use it."

Jarzi sighed. "If I was so fast, I would have gotten away last night."

"You _did_ get away, by the looks of it."

"No, that man could have killed me if he'd wanted to."

"Tell me what happened." He turned his attention to her again; before his focus had been mostly on the birds and their surroundings. He seemed concerned, but Jarzi wasn't sure if it was that or just bored curiosity.

"I went flying last night like I always do, at about two in the morning. There are these woods behind my house, and as I went over them I got shot through my wing and fell into them. It hurt like hell but I got up. Somehow I managed to not break any other bones, but anyways...I figured it had been one of those farmers night-hunting so I turned to walk away, when I saw this cloaked man standing a few yards away from me. I knew he wanted to kill me. I never saw a gun because it all happened so fast, but I just know it was him who shot me. I turned and ran, and I ran all the way through the forest. He was so fast...He just kept right up with me. I'd never run through that forest before, and it was like he knew exactly where he was going. I kept tripping and dodging trees but he just knew everything and barely made a sound!"

Jarzi paused for a moment, her frustration getting the best of her. She clenched her hands into fists and growled quietly to herself.

"...And I kept running! I don't know where the energy came from, but I got through that forest and found this house on the other side."

Again she paused, this time to put her head down. The memories were starting to resurface now, breaking through the fog that had clouded her mind about the previous night. She remembered it so clearly that it was practically a lifelike flashback happening before her eyes. She closed them, but the eerie visions continued to flash, bright as lightning, through her mind.

"I...I did something terrible. I kicked the door in and found this older guy sitting there. He got so scared when he saw me. At the time I just...I was just running on instinct and, ugh...this guy, he just wouldn't leave me alone! And I slammed this poor man's front door shut and ran through his house. He was so scared, and I feel so bad about it now. I don't know what I was thinking but I took his kitchen knife, that one you found me with, and just ran...Ran like the pathetic wuss that I am. I jumped out that man's window and just _left_ him there!"

The Creeper looked the other way and rolled his eyes. The girl was just ranting now; no doubt she had picked that wonderful ability up from those weak-minded humans she lived with.

"He killed him!" Jarzi practically shouted.

"What?"

"That bastard who was chasing me! He killed that poor man. I heard him screaming as I ran away, and I just kept running. God, I am such a terrible person!"

"You couldn't have done anything." _Why the hell would she give a rat's ass about a stranger, anyways?_

"Well he didn't deserve to die like that! I don't know what he did to him but that unfortunate man's screams are still lingering in my mind."

"Like I said, there was nothing you could have done."

Jarzi huffed angrily. "Yeah, instead I just kept running when I saw that man coming after me again! I ran and ran...He caught up to me like it was nothing. I ran all the way back through that forest and fell on the road when I couldn't run anymore. Then he just stood there, pacing on the side of the road just to taunt me! This car came, and when it passed me it ran over my foot and when I looked back, he was gone. It was like he evaporated into thin air! I passed out for God only knows how long, then you showed up!"

"What did he look like?"

"I dunno. It was dark out. Just pouring rain and I couldn't see."

"You must have seen _something_."

"He was really tall. Oh, and he had sharp teeth like ours."

The Creeper snapped his head to face here again, his eyes wide with anger. "He _what_?"

"I thought it _was_ you at first, but he wasn't nearly as built as you are."

_Rithyrn! You sick bastard!_

Jarzi could sense his anger. It was obviously intentional that he was trying to bury it away for now.

"What is it?" she asked in a shaky voice. She watched him growl at the grass, his eyes intense with an icy rage even greater than she had felt earlier. His hands knotted into fists and he turned back to Jarzi with his hideous teeth glistening with saliva in the sunlight.

"Stay out of those woods," he snarled.

Jarzi tried to shrink away from him. "Uhh...Okay."

"And if he comes back for you, you come find _me_. I'll deal with him."

"And what if I can't find you? This guy is too fast!"

_"Then call to me."_

"Ahh!" Jarzi yelped, jumping out of her seat with her hands tightly gripping her head. "What the hell was that?"

_"Jarzi."_ "Look at me."

"What?" Jarzi spun around and saw Mack still sitting calmly with his hand extended to her. Eyes filled with trepidation, her mouth moved aimlessly before finding suitable words. "Did you do that?"

"I did."

"What? I just heard your voice in my head! And how did you know my name?"

_"I found it engraved on a bracelet you had on last night."_

"Ahh! Stop it!" Jarzi grabbed her head again and tugged at her still-damp hair. "I don't like it!"

_"Get used to it. All creatures like us can speak mentally to each other."_

"Well it hurts my head!"

_"It will until you get used to it."_

"You're sitting right next to me! Just talk like normal people!"

He frowned. "Verbal communication isn't something _I'm_ used to."

"You're weird!"

"As I said, all creatures like us can do it. Not just you and I."

"And just what _are_ we?"

He paused for a few moments and averted his eyes as if thinking. "We're a type of gargoyle," he said finally. "One of the first species to ever arise."

"Really? It's that simple?" She returned to her seat, still rubbing her fingers gently against her temples.

"Simple, if you want to call it that. Humans could never comprehend what we are."

"I thought gargoyles were just mythological."

"We are. That's the whole point of it. Do you think that if some human heard a story about another meeting you, that they would believe it?"

"I dunno. Probably not."

"Mythical beings strike _fear_ into those stupid mortals. They don't understand us so they deem us evil, and then pass us off as legends."

"So was that some sort of magic then? The talking in my head?"

"_They_ might call our abilities magic. But we're just a product of evolution like every other creature on this pitiful planet."

Jarzi's face screwed up as she took it all in. "Okay, then if I'm a gargoyle, why is my mother a human?"

He shrugged. "My father was a human," he said after a while. "That's just how it works. One of our parents is a gargoyle, and the other is a human."

"Oh," Jarzi replied, her voice slightly vivid. "So my father was a gargoyle like me?"

The Creeper shot her an uneasy look. "Yes." He hoped that she wouldn't put two and two together, at least not immediately. For her to find out the truth right now would be taking things way too fast. Even after fifteen years, he hadn't prepared himself for this day at all.

Jarzi took a deep breath and leaned her head back against the top of the chair. She looked a bit poignant to him then, and for an instant a touch of guilt struck and he wished that he had been there all those years. It then escaped as quickly as it was captured and he watched her eyes become laden with sadness.

At first the statement didn't seem so surprising. She knew very well that Jeff wasn't her real father; he just filled the vacuous gap that would have otherwise been a cavernous, rotting wound. The story that Jetseta had thrown out was a drunken ramble about her and Xavier being Satan's progenies. When her brother had asked Trish, she had refused to speak of the matter altogether. Now Jarzi began to realise why.

_I should take the chance. I should tell her. She doesn't know it yet, but she's a lot stronger and older than her fifteen years. I should..._

"What about my brother?" she asked suddenly. He read it as a lame attempt to push the thoughts of who her father may be aside. "He's a bit different than me."

"_What?"_

"Don't do that!" Jarzi cringed and shifted to glare at him. "Ugh! I mean, his face is like yours and mine, and his hair grows all weird...stuff like that. But he doesn't have wings and he can't regenerate. Well, he can, but it takes him forever. I stabbed him in the face once and it took like a month to heal, even after he ate everything in sight that was edible."

Mack choked out another laugh. "Some just look more human than others, I guess."

"Oh," she said, her voice fading as the misery nipped at her. "I miss him."

"What?"

"My brother, Xavier. He started getting weird in the head when we were eight. He got progressively worse but it's not like my mom could get mental help for him and he turned into this...zombie. He eventually cracked up completely and ran away. We haven't seen him in over three years."

Mack was well aware of the fact that his son had left the Denthar household, but her brief explanation was the only reason he'd heard for it. Having been too engrossed with creating his human tapestries, the genetically inferior child had never been much of a priority.

"Perhaps one day he'll return."

"Yeah, maybe." Jarzi sighed. "It's been so long. I'm going to be sixteen next week and I won't even get to celebrate it with my twin."

"You'll have plenty more birthdays to worry about it."

"I know, but I just wish he'd come home, just for our birthday. We used to open gifts together and play the new video games we'd get. Presents just aren't fun anymore without my brother there to share them."

Her father gave her a confused look. Birthday gifts certainly weren't a concept he was at all familiar with. He couldn't even remember what day of the year his own birthday was, nor the exact number of years he'd been around. "And if he doesn't show up, what would make you happy?"

"Pfft. I'd love it if my dad...Jeff...bought me a truck, but I know it's way out of his financial range."

"Have you told him?"

"Hmm?" She looked at him, confused again. "Oh, about the truck?" The Creeper nodded. "I've mentioned it indirectly, but I know he doesn't have the money. He won't even buy himself a new truck. His old Ford is on its last leg. I like to go driving a lot, and I feel bad about driving it anymore. I'm not sure why he doesn't just buy himself a used truck...I think he has some kind of bond with that vehicle."

Mack laughed. "When you get your first vehicle, you'll understand the emotional bond you form with it."

"_If_ I ever get my first vehicle."

"Maybe you'll get one. Maybe your brother will show up, too. And if he does, you can let him drive it."

"He doesn't know how to drive. Jeff taught me when I was only twelve, but by then Xavier was gone."

The Creeper nodded solemnly.

"What time is it?" she asked suddenly. "I don't know where my watch is."

He looked up at the sky. "Around noon."

"I should be getting home, if you don't mind."

He looked at her and nodded. "I'll drive you."

"That's okay, I can walk."

"We're over two hours away from your house. And you're not going out there with that psychopath around." Bringing her to this location had been deliberate. Not only was it far from where he'd found her, it was one of the only houses he'd taken possession of that wasn't entirely infected with death.

Jarzi frowned but wasn't about to protest. Mack walked to his truck and she followed, again from a distance. She watched him disappear behind the driver's side of the vehicle and again wondered why he seemed rather familiar. She picked through her memories, but no matter how deep she dug, she couldn't find any of significance. Frustrated, she climbed into the cab and propped her feet up on the dash. At least the reek of death had been blown away through the open windows. Still, she didn't like it.

"Who lives with you?" Jarzi asked as her father steered out of the driveway.

"No one."

"Really," Jarzi said flatly, not believing him. "Then whose clothes are these?"

He looked over, his face looking unsure. He shrugged, returning his eyes to the road.

"Don't lie to me, Mack!" Jarzi quickly snapped before he could even reply. "You must live with somebody!"

"A friend of mine." He decided to lie anyways.

Jarzi threw her arms up in quick defeat. "Whatever."

"I honestly live alone. I haven't spoken to the friend in years. That's why I had no problem giving them to you."

"How can you live alone?"

Confused, Mack turned to her again. "I don't like people." He didn't see it quite exactly the way she did. In his mind, he had plenty of people watching over him as he slept or worked.

"I could never live alone. It's too...lonely."

She said no more after that. She propped her arm up on the window and let the breeze pass through her moist hair. Closing her eyes, she let her mind wander into her perfect, imaginative world.

--

This chapter has been split in half because it was sooooo long. Since the other half is already written, I'll be uploading it in a day or so.

**Please review.** I welcome ideas and suggestions.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus  
Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	13. Bad Blood

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

I'm not too happy with this boring half of Chapter 11. I'm labelling it Chapter 12 just because I'm already behind with the numbering due to Chapter 8.5.

**Chapter 12 — Bad Blood**

MACK PULLED INTO his stone driveway and watched as a new flock of crows took to the sky to avoid the vehicle's massive tires. The annoyed birds flew in all directions before they finally decided on a direction to follow. Annoyed, he drove into the backyard and parked where the vehicle would not be seen from the road. It blended in neatly with the trees and tall grass, and any passing motorists wouldn't think to look at it twice.

Jarzi was fast asleep in the passenger seat, using what was left of the dilapidated seatbelt as a very skinny and uncomfortable pillow. She had slumped over and fallen asleep halfway into the drive after finding enough confidence to do so. Mack knew she was still afraid of him, especially after everything she'd been through. He didn't even know half of it, but had an adequate idea of what she'd suffered through. She had good reason for not wanting to trust anyone, even if her few fights with death and abuse were miniscule compared to what he'd experienced.

He nudged her on the shoulder until she opened her heavy eyes. She flinched when she saw him and glared intently at him until she was sure he wasn't going to attack her. Frowning, he turned to climb out of his truck when Jarzi's soft voice stopped him.

"Why did you help me?" she asked, sounding distant and depressed. She was staring out at the corn as if spacing out.

"You were in my way. It was either run you over and get my truck dirty, or pick you up and give you food," he replied. Snickering at the disgusted look he received, he turned and walked toward his house. Jarzi remained still for a moment, absorbing the impact of what seemed to be excessively honest words. It was an odd response no matter how she looked at it.

Getting out, Jarzi debated whether or not to go home right away. She walked to the side of the yard and looked across the street; her dog was laying out in the shade trying to keep cool, a rope tied from his collar to the circumference of an old acorn tree.

"Come here," Mack called from his back porch. Jarzi looked over and saw him fumbling with a large ring of keys. Their metallic jingle echoed loudly as he searched for the one he was looking for. They all looked the same, but apparently he could tell the difference as he finally chose one and shoved it into the blue door's deadbolt.

"What is it?" she asked when she reached the porch's steps. Hesitant, she stayed safely on the grass.

"I want to give you something," he spoke into the door until it finally opened, creaking eerily on its old hinges.

"Umm, okay." Instincts kicked in and prickled through her body, telling her to stay where she was. Unsure of why, she looked around and tried letting her nose find out for her, but there was nothing. She felt a great iniquity, which in and of itself could smell like anything it wanted to.

"Stay there," Mack said, holding his hand towards her. She nodded as he walked into a dark hallway, feeling relieved that she didn't have to go into the house that had sparked her curiosity several times over the years. One didn't need half a brain to figure out that that an unusual evil lurked in this place. Learning its inhabitant's identity gave the house an even darker aura than she had originally envisioned.

There had to be good reason for him to not invite her into his home. She wondered just what was hiding behind that blue storm door that was hanging half-open. It just had to be something bad. A creature so scary couldn't possibly be associated with anything good.

Then again, it was her own mind telling her that. Feeling that she didn't have anything decent associated with herself, she automatically threw the same assumption on old Mack.

He emerged a few minutes later, carrying a clear, sparkling object in his hand. He approached her, his grin mischievous and proud, and offered her the item. It was another of his knives, but this wasn't made of bone, wood, or even steel. The metal of the spiked blade was practically a mirror with perfect shine that glistened beautifully in the blazing sunlight, accenting all colours that touched it. She wasn't sure what kind of metal or alloy it was; her knowledge of elements was quite minute. Her mouth dropped as her eyes were dazzled by the dagger's hilt. Its clear rock sparkled brilliantly with even the slightest shift of her hand, reflecting different shades of shimmering greys mixed with pure white. It was carved into the shape of a howling wolf.

"Is this _diamond_?!" Jarzi yelled excitedly with wide eyes. Mack saw the reflecting shine from the dagger in his daughter's green orbs and smiled.

"Diamond hilt, platinum blade."

"WOW! It's gorgeous!" Jarzi couldn't speak anymore; the dagger's absolute exquisiteness had captured her interest in its entirety.

"It's yours," Mack said.

"WHAT?" Jarzi's jaw dropped as far as it physically could. She blinked at him, looking absolutely retarded in her dumbfounded stupor, yet it made her father happy to see it nonetheless.

"It's yours," he repeated.

"You can't give this to me! It's beyond valuable and I certainly don't deserve it! You don't even know me!"

"I don't deserve to keep it."

"What are you talking about, Mack? This is probably worth a billion dollars or more!"

"Money means nothing to me. It keeps my electricity on and puts gas in my truck. The dagger is valuable in sentimental terms. I want you to have it."

Disbelief continued to cloud Jarzi's mind. "Did you make this?" she blurted, trying to break free of the speechlessness.

"No, my grandfather did. He taught me how to make weapons."

"So that's where you get that artistic talent from." She spun the knife between her fingers, watching it glisten vibrantly. "Your family must be rich."

"They were, when they were alive. From what I know, I have no more living relatives. That is why I want you to have it."

"But I'm just your neighbour, aren't I? What connection do I have to you that could possibly make me deserve something so valuable and pretty? I don't know your family!"

"Ask me again, sometime."

Jarzi rolled her eyes quickly before fixing them on the fascinating deadly weapon again.

"My grandfather gave it to my mother before I received it. She told me when I was a child that she had locked some kind of power in it, but said I would learn it on my own, when the time was right. I never discovered the power, nor did it show itself to me. I give up on it. Perhaps you will have better luck."

A puzzled look crossed Jarzi's face, but the knife only felt like a cold, heavy jewel. She found herself curious about her new friend's family and past. He had mentioned earlier that his mother was a gargoyle; sadly, with her being gone, she'd never get to meet her.

"I'll try my best to figure it out. Hopefully it won't end up killing me."

Mack chuckled as he spoke. "My mother wouldn't put harmful magic into anything. She was a healer, not a killer."

His daughter was barely listening as she turned the knife in her hand, looking it over several times before returning her attention to him.

"You're the best, Mack! Thank you!" He finally received the genuine smile he had been looking for when she said it. It was one of the only he'd seen; the first he could remember was when he had taught her to fly at the age of three. Of course, she wouldn't remember that now. Jarzi hugged him tightly then, continuing to smile as if she were the happiest person on the planet. "In fact, I don't _know_ how to thank you!"

He hugged her back, but only because it was custom to do so. He remembered little of showing affection or even feeling it, nor the purpose of it in his lonely life. What little he had felt was buried so deep in the back of his mind that he would need a jackhammer if he wanted to break into those sealed memories. He had no intention of doing so. There was too little in his past worth recalling.

Knowing this, he still felt strange in this situation. Back in the day, he had made a stringent promise to himself to stay a safe distance away from his children and let them live their own lives. Now that his daughter was right here, talking to him and hugging him for the first time in almost sixteen years, the pledge was crumbling under his feet like an old broken building. He realised that having any kind of relationship with her, whether it be on a friendly or family level, would potentially be disastrous, but he had a feeling he'd let it happen anyways.

"Do you want me to show you how to use it?" he asked, brushing the thoughts away.

"Yes," she replied, stepping away from him. "But I really need to be getting home. I don't want to get in trouble."

He nodded quickly before turning toward his house again. "Then go home. If you'll be up late, I'll teach you how to use it."

"You're not going to make me hurt anything, are you?"

He looked over his shoulder, casting a neutral glance in her direction. "No, but I want you to come hunting with me someday."

"Okay, fair enough. See ya later."

--

Trish was in the bathroom attempting to cover her hair with a new colour when Jarzi came in, talking to her dog as she normally did. She came out of the bathroom, and looked down the stairs, receiving a childish giggle when Jarzi saw her with half-dyed, half-dry hair going in all directions.

"Can you help me with this?" Trish asked.

"Sure."

Trish handed her the colour bottle and pried the gloves from her hands. "I hate doing this. It's such a pain in the ass trying to cover up the grey just so it can grow back in two weeks later. And I can never see what I'm doing!" She straddled the toilet and tossed the gloves in the trash.

"I've never noticed it," Jarzi said as she picked through her grandmother's hair to find the areas she had missed.

"Well it's there. I just don't want anyone to see it!"

"It's not even that bad. I hardly see any grey!"

"You'd notice it if it was on your head," Trisha hissed. "Just wait until you get old. Your grey will stick out like a sore thumb against your black skin and hair."

"Oh I can't _wait_," Jarzi said sarcastically.

Trish sighed and looked into a hand mirror to wipe dye from her forehead. "Where have you been, anyways?"

"Nowhere, really." She wrinkled her nose as the chemical scent bit ravenously at her olfactory tissue. "I met this guy last night, and he was pretty cool."

"Really?" Trish turned to look at her, surprise evident in her voice. "And you didn't scare him away?"

"Hey! I may look mean but I'm harmless!"

_He's probably had a run in with their type before or else he's mentally ill,_ Trish thought. _No one in their right mind would come within fifty yards of these creatures._

"So how did you meet this person?" she asked.

"I got hurt last night." Jarzi knew she had to bend the truth to a significant degree; it would either terrify her family into locking her up in the house 24-7, or else they wouldn't believe her at all. She felt bad about it, but at this point she really had no other choice. She'd be as honest as possible, and hoped she'd at least sound convincing. "One of those crazy farmers over on Route 425 thought I was a bird and shot me, so I fell and broke my ankle. I passed out from the impact on the pavement, and then this guy pulled up and put me in his truck. I didn't wake up until this morning, and he explained himself. I thanked him for the help and he brought me food, so I was able to heal."

Trish tilted the mirror so she could see her granddaughter's face behind her. The girl didn't notice as she continued to apply the brown colorant. "Really?"

"Yeah, he wasn't mean to me or anything. He didn't call me evil, or make fun of me, or hurt me. He was completely accepting of what I am."

"You're lucky. Not many other people would look at you and see past your rough exterior. It's nice to know that there are still a few good men out there."

"I agree."

When all the grey hair had been concealed, Trish stood up to set the timer. As Jarzi was washing her hands, she noticed the new pair of clothes. "Where did you get that shirt and pants?" she asked.

"Pfft," she replied sharply, her voice sounding beyond annoyed. "My shirt got bloody from the gunshot wound, and my pants ended up ripped. So he gave me these, from some relative of his that wasn't there at his house. I can't wait to change because they don't fit."

"I can see that. So who is this person? What does he do? Maybe I know him."

Jarzi shrugged. "His name is Mack. I don't think he works, if that's what you mean."

"Mack? Like the dump trucks?" Trish snickered.

"Yup," Jarzi said.

"So what does he look like? How old is he?"

She felt a bit of nervousness overcome her. Certainly she couldn't tell her grandmother about her new friend's species. She knew nothing about how Darry had been killed by the same man, or even who Mack was to her, but she had a feeling that Trisha's encounter with gargoyles in the past hadn't been too enjoyable.

"He has blue eyes, white hair, and black skin. He's really tall, about six-foot-four, and I think he's a body builder." At least none of that was a lie. "I don't know how old he is. Maybe in his sixties."

"Oh, okay. Doesn't sound like anyone I would know. Just be careful." Surprisingly, the simple features didn't strike Trish as anything to be afraid of.

"I will. He says he wants me to go see him later, so I think I will."

"Good. You need to make some friends."

--

Any light-natured emotions that the Creeper felt scattered like rats when he found the skeletons that Rithyrn had left on his wall. Upon finding his front door hanging open, he initially assumed that some teenagers had broken in as some kind of immature prank. Finding the acid-laden bodies had changed that opinion entirely. No doubt, Rithyrn had sent one of his brainless minions to do his dirty work for him. That white-skinned demon could never do anything for himself, as he had learned quite quickly over the centuries.

Irritation radiated in all directions as he pulled away what bones were left on the wall. They peeled away as if attached by putty and snapped when the substance finally let them go. He threw the bones into a messy pile on the concrete floor while cursing continuously in his native language; some chipped or shattered into tiny pieces that would never fit back together. Others were reduced to dust almost instantaneously as they were yanked from their sticky confinement. He kicked the ones on the floor into the mound, watching them break into unidentifiable chunks as well.

What did that childish sprite want this time? He'd left him alone, for the most part, for years, only to resurface now. Of course, Rithyrn would never come out and tell him what he wanted; he'd play games for a while until he became bored. Then, he would unleash his evil in full vigour—a phenomenon that a very select few had ever survived.

_He's using her to get to me_, he thought as he remembered Jarzi's anecdote about being chased through the evergreens. No doubt, Rithyrn had set the whole thing up. He'd chase her to the road at a time he knew the Creeper would be driving through, just so he could find her in an injured, exhausted mess when he arrived. He was playing with his emotions, and he knew just how to do so. Pissing him off was only pressing his buttons, obscuring his lucidity and clear judgment. Fury could do that to anyone, whether they be intelligent beings or simple, sentient animals. As soon as he realised that the demonic creature had outsmarted him yet again, his rage boiled over completely.

What that psychopathic asshole had done to his family was what angered him the most. The torture, both physical and mental, and decades of starvation that he'd personally gone through meant nothing compared to what he'd witnessed happening to those around him, thousands of years ago. Those sick memories were scraping fiercely against his defensive psychological wall, heightening his headache further than it already was.

Jarzi was all he had left now; whether or not his son was alive, dead, or in some other state of being was yet to be discovered. Although initially is daughter meant nothing to him, she did now. He was fighting hard to keep his mind focused, but his grip was slipping. He wanted her there, by his side, whether she be killing with him or serving some other purpose. He wasn't going to let Rithyrn get his slinky, murderous hands on her.

An image of the demon chasing his daughter flashed through his mind, and then he saw him grabbing her, raping her, slaughtering her, eating her...

He picked up an intact skull and hurled it against the wall. It hit one of his other victims on the head, leaving a thin bony powder on her terrified face before clattering to the floor. The glass eyes that had once been secure in the skull's sockets clicked to the ground and rolled across the room in opposite directions, stopping only when they found another surface to cling to.

An ear-piercing roar then filled the basement and the entire house as some of his ghastly ire fled from his mind and body. The air carried its malicious energy away until the angry howl died down. He panted heavily and punched the wall, leaving a few tiny cracks in the painted brick. His fist pulled away without so much as a scratch.

No words could describe how much he hated that wicked fiend.

Nothing he'd ever done to hurt a human could compare to his many fantasies of killing Rithyrn.

Unfortunately, he had no idea how to kill him. He wasn't even sure _what_ the demonic man was.

Swiping his keys from an old wicker table, he stormed outside to his truck. If Rithyrn wasn't going to feel his wrath, someone else surely would.

--

Jeff was finishing up the Sunday edition of the local newspaper when he heard Jarzi's footsteps behind him, her sharp nails tapping softly against the linoleum kitchen floor. He folded the weather section and looked behind him. "What's up?"

"Not much," she answered.

"Trish told me about your new friend." He looked at her sternly, placing the paper on top of the other subject divisions. "You stay out of trouble, you hear?"

"I will. I promise."

"I don't need you turning out like Xavier," he warned. "I still think that kid was talking to somebody. I don't need you getting manipulated in the same way."

"I can smell better than him," Jarzi snapped. "I can tell what someone is about before they even open their mouth. Believe me, I can."

"Oh, I know that, I'm just saying. You be careful."

Sighing, she took a seat at the table beside him.

"I was wondering if I could ask you something." Jarzi exhaled heavily. She didn't know how to approach this, but leaving the topic alone would eat her alive.

Jeff organised the papers, putting them in order from section A to E. "What is it?" He could tell that something was bothering her.

"I don't want to upset you. I know this is a sensitive topic. But, can you tell me about my father? My real father?"

Jeff had actually been waiting for this question. He once assumed that she'd have brought it up years ago after piecing the facts together that the paternal side of her family was both missing and inhuman. Xavier had pestered him with these queries up until the day he ran away.

"I suppose, though I have to be honest, I have not one good word to say about him."

"That's okay. I need to know."

He decided to start from the beginning. "Well, from what I've been told you look like a spitting image of him. I've never actually met him, nor have I seen a picture."

_So Mack was right. My father really is a gargoyle._

Jeff chose his words carefully before continuing and resolved to leave a few momentous portions of the story alone. "Your grandmother was on her way home from college when she first encountered him. She was with her brother, Darry, and they were heading down the same highway we're on right now. Your father had this beat up van of some sort, and he ran them off the road. They escaped at first, and tried to call for help, but he tracked them down. They didn't know why he was pursuing them, but he just wouldn't leave them alone. They were in an old police station up in Poho County when he came back. He kidnapped your uncle and flew away with him. It was the last time Trish saw him alive."

Jarzi's eyebrows tightened with horror and her mouth dropped slightly, but she remained quiet.

"Your grandmother begged him to take her instead, but he didn't. There was something about Darry that he liked."

Trish had never told Jeff about the ghost that liked to follow her around and make fun of her on a daily basis. He'd never seen it for himself, either.

"He then went silent for twenty-three years. Rumours say he goes into hibernation, only to wake up every twenty-third spring to feed. Whether or not that's actually true, I don't know."

"_He_ killed Uncle Darry..." Jarzi said, trailing off as she stared at the floor.

"Do you want to know the rest?" Jeff asked.

"Yes. Tell me everything you know."

He nodded again. "As I said, we heard nothing about him for twenty-three years. Then he decided to show up one day while your mother and I were at a restaurant and kidnapped her from the restroom. I never saw it happen." His hands knotted into fists. "I wish I could have, but he was too fast and I couldn't stop him. He kept her in some run-down factory for almost three weeks before she was able to escape! A passing policeman picked her up and brought her to the station. When we took her to the hospital, we found out that she was pregnant with you and your brother."

Jarzi sniffled but said nothing. This certainly wasn't what she had hoped to hear.

"We haven't seen him since then."

"Why did he do all that?"

"He's a serial killer. I don't know why they do things. Nobody does. Those types are corrupt in the head and get off on seeing other people die."

He watched her wipe at her eyes, feeling bad for her.

"He's killed thousands of people, Jarzi."

"That's terrible!" she shouted as tears streamed down her bony cheeks. "And all these years I hoped that I would get to meet him. For so long I imagined him being some kind of hero to the world that would someday come looking for me!" She fixed her eyes back onto the cracks in the concrete floor and sighed heavily. "Man, was I wrong!"

"Believe me—you wouldn't want to meet him."

"He probably doesn't even know that Xavier and I exist."

Jeff shrugged. "You're right, he probably doesn't. Be thankful."

"I guess I have to be." She wiped tears from her eyes. "Where is he now?"

"I have no idea. Although there have been reports of batlike creature sightings in the nearby cities for years, he hasn't come out this way since you were born. I just hope it stays that way."

Jarzi accepted the answer, but her feelings refused to relinquish themselves. A part of her wanted to go find and confront him, but she knew deep down that she would be too scared. Tracking him down would be cake for her, but hearing about his intense evil stopped her before the thoughts could even be completed.

"Are you alright?" he asked, concern filling his voice.

She seemed lost to him then, staring at the floor with her arms folded tightly over her stomach. He could tell her mind was roiling and hoped to himself that she wouldn't do anything rash now that she held this information.

"I'm fine. It's just a lot to take in."

"I know. I never knew my father, either. He was deadbeat, white trash."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one, then. What was my father's name?"

"I don't know." He felt stupid saying that, but it was the truth. "I don't even think your mother found that out. The media and police have always called him the Creeper, but all serial killers get nicknames from the law. Considering that he isn't even human, his name is probably something that neither of us could even pronounce."

Her lips curled into a smirk even though she was crying. It was probably the truth, after all.

"Perhaps you'll find more answers someday, but that's really all I can offer."

"That's okay. Maybe I will."

"Oh, and please don't tell Trisha that I told you any of this. She would probably have a fit."

"I won't."

--

Deputy Sheriff Tyler Fisch pulled over at a Sunoco and went inside to buy some gum. When he came back out, he was hit with the feeling that this was not going to be a pleasant night. The day was growing old, and with the darkness awoke criminals. In the city, he had only dealt with two armed robberies, a few domestics, and one murder in the past two days. The whole week had been relatively quiet, but he knew it wouldn't last for long. When the raincloud decided to hover tediously over his head, he knew he was in for something big. The calm before the storm was blowing over; now, the thunder and lightning was rolling in. Intuition wasn't something to mess with.

His suspicions were answered almost immediately when he saw a green minivan fly by, pushing an easy hundred miles per hour as it was chased by a rusty old ice cream truck. The monstrous vehicle's horn roared heatedly through its grill, sending the van's terrified driver into long, jerking swerves as it he danced from side to side on the faded asphalt and disappeared through a cluster of trees.

Tyler Fisch was in his car, backing out of the parking space as soon as the racing vehicles were out of site. He whipped out of the lot and sent a cloud of grey dust into the air, red and blue flashing, and hit the siren as he stormed down Route 9. Catching up with the menace was easy for his powerful car, but as he approached the feeling that he was in imminent danger grew over his body, consuming him with apprehension. Still, he had a job to do. Usually he would leave runs like this to the lower ranking officers, but calling for backup and waiting would only result in the demented psycho getting away.

The truck made no effort to pull over; in fact, he wasn't even sure that the driver knew he was there until he came right up along side it. Having nowhere to go, the rusted vehicle kept to the right lane, but matched the interceptor's speed. The uniformed officer squinted to try and look inside the driver side window, but it was too tinted with dirt and age to see anything.

Looking back to the road, he pulled his radio from its latch and began speaking furiously into it. "Code 30! Code 30!" he yelled as the maniac beside him slammed on the brakes, falling instantly behind him. "Chase in progress! Please respond!" Any hopes of remaining professional and calm went flying out the window when he saw the vehicle rocketing towards him from behind.

A voice began to drift through the link but went unheard as the old Chevy began to ram his interceptor in the ass. His neck was thrown into a violent whiplash as his forehead impacted the plastic steering wheel; the same deadly blow threw his communication link to the floor. It took all the officer had to keep his head on straight.

The minivan ahead of him peeled into an abandoned parking lot and disappeared behind a building. The deputy's head was slammed against the wheel again, leaving a smear of bulleted sweat behind before he was able to see where the green blur ended up. Keeping his car on the road was a challenge in and of itself, but he fumbled around his belt to try and free his gun from its casing. The horn of the forbidding vehicle seemed to be coming at him from all directions. Brakes screeched as suddenly the cop saw an oncoming car that had nowhere else to go and was clearly just as afraid as the approaching duo. He whipped into the right lane just in time to avoid becoming part of a steal and bloody soup with the other motorist.

Another car was on the horizon, and he was coming up on it fast, the BEATNGU still in tow. It slammed into him again, sending him back in the left lane and almost into the ditch. His siren wailed; what was once the sound of help arriving was now the piercing scream of a victim on the verge of dying. The little car ahead of him began to panic and painted the road with neat curves as it tried to avoid the cop's advances, but no matter how hard he tried to line himself up to get around it, the truck behind him would still throw him off course.

For a moment the rusty hulk seemed to quiet. It followed behind with its noises drowned out by his howling siren, but still remained right on his tail. It was waiting for something, Tyler knew. He used the sudden calmness to pull his radio up by its curly cord and shouted into it, practically hyperventilating with fear.

"This is Deputy Fisch! 11-99, I am requesting backup immediately!" Sirens called to him as he let off the transmission button and a female voice wafted through the air.

"10-4. Officers already en route."

Of course, they _had_ been coming after him already. He still saw nothing on the forward horizon, and when he tried to peer into his mirrors he saw only the BEATNGU's monstrous face bearing down on him, ready to rip him to shreds. He moved to pass the economy sedan in front of him, but just as his front bumper began to head onward, the truck smashed into his rear from a sharp angle. The interceptor was hurled into the tiny auto's back tire in a forceful, violent double pit manoeuvre.

The radio went flying against the windshield and bounced into the passenger seat as the two cars squealed and spun out of control; the three-cylinder cascaded off into a tree and was turned into a shiny metallic pancake. The airbag puffed out, but the car's lack of protective steal was what ultimately did the driver in.

Fisch's car spun and came to a halt in a half-picked field where the lingering odour of ripe cabbage remained. He straightened in his seat and threw the car into park before pushing his head against the seat to catch his breath. His heart raced furiously in his chest, threatening to tear itself from his arteries and beat its way up through his throat to escape through his mouth. The sensation of nausea welled up from the pit of his stomach and worked through him as a bolt of chills—a mixture of fear and upset from the spinning.

The radio clicked and a few fuzzy words popped through, but nothing comprehensible. He could not hear any sirens in the distance, but he hoped the other police were on their way. He waited for his breath to become regular and cautiously opened his door, looking around as if expecting the huge van to come careening from the road into his lap.

Perfect silence would have consumed him had it not been for his car's worked up engine. He stood up and looked around, but the truck was gone. Across the street, the broken Toyota was still with death, the tree it was pinned to moving with the waves of the wind as if nothing had happened. He staggered around his car, nerves jumping with agitation and shock. The vehicle's metallic rear had held up fairly well; there were a few dents and numerous paint scratches, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. On the front, the corner had been smashed in during the impact with the other car, but the dent could be hammered back out.

Frustrated, he slumped against the car and wondered what to do. He'd lost the predator, who with an engine that powerful, could be anywhere by now. Sirens finally began to call out in the distance, somewhere to the northwest, but it would still take time to get to him.

He looked over toward the other casualty, but there was still no movement. He hadn't seen the car impact the tree, nor had he heard it while he was busy catapulting into the cabbage. Professionalism finally gripped him; it was second nature to him, and he trotted over to the wreckage.

A young man's face was stuffed into a deflated airbag, and he wasn't moving. Remembering his walkie-talkie, he lifted it from his belt and spoke into it.

"This is Deputy Fisch," he panted. "Chase over. My car is busted up but driveable. I have one traffic fatality, coroner required on East 9, about 6 miles past Anderville heading toward Kissel County. Suspect es...AHHHHHH!"

A black hand snapped the two-way from his hand and crushed it between powerful fingers. He stumbled forward and came face-to-face with the legendary Creeper who smiled sadistically at him and grabbed him by the neck. As if he were only five pounds, he was thrown into the air and landed hard on his back on the other side of the field.

_What that fuck was that?! _Air was forced from the officer's lungs as he tried to talk, but could only think the words. Running on adrenaline, he ignored the surging pain stemming from his spine and stood up to face what was out there. He looked toward the car and tottered in a sloppy circle, but the monster was gone. Blonde hair stood up on the back of his neck as he reached for his pistol and readied it. The thing would be back, and he didn't plan on letting it get away this time.

He'd heard of it, but never seen it until now. Having never believed in it before today, the reality hit him like a thousand knives and here he was, alone to face the Creeper. All the tales were about a winged man with grey or black skin who would only wake up every twenty-three years, but what was he doing here, now? He'd heard of him back when he was a kid, back in 2001, and then the predicted twenty-three years later, but he wasn't supposed to be around yet.

Confused, the officer darted for the safety of his car. The sirens were getting closer; if he could just hold out a few minutes longer, he figured he'd be okay.

He was almost there when the Creeper dropped out of the sky and landed right in front of him. He stood tall with his wings spread to full span and waited for the panicked officer to slow his step. Fisch raised his weapon and fired point-blank. The shots snapped loudly into his ears as the bullets ejected, hitting the Bat out of Hell with enough force to send him back a few steps. He unloaded all six rounds, each hitting with dead accuracy in various parts of his mutated body. Too scared to move, Deputy Fisch simply stared with wide eyes that couldn't even blink.

He tried to keep calm. Looking down the road, he saw his backup coming around a curve at full speed, ready to aid their trapped comrade. Four of them were barrelling down the highway, and silently the deputy sheriff prayed that they would be enough.

The Creeper looked at his wounds; one in his left shoulder, three in the abdomen, another in his leg, and the last lodged in his brain where he couldn't see. Trembling like a frozen man, the officer searched his utility belt for ammunition as the predator walked up to him, acting as if unscathed by the .44's deadly magic. He backed away, feeling the moist soil beneath his feet welling up, trying to slow his movement getting away. The monster grabbed his weapon and yanked him along with it, forcing the officer to fall into a soft bed of dry cabbage leaves.

Mack was cursed and yelled at as he tore the handcuffs from his prey's uniform, holding him down with a black claw pressed against the back of his neck. He'd heard it before; it was nothing new. In fact, it was so expected that not hearing it would have been a concern. Background noise wasn't something he cared to pay attention to. Seeing the fleet of interceptors approaching, he snapped Fisch's hands behind him, cuffed him with ease, and threw him violently into the back of his car.

The cop cars pulled up with sirens blaring, matching the beat with Deputy Fisch's battered cruiser. They howled fiercely like wolves on the hunt, but the Creeper wasn't going to let himself be captured by the men in blue. He leapt into the driver's seat as the cops emerged and had the car moving before he could even close the door.

He pointed the car in the direction of the sedan fatality to throw them off. They fell for it and followed by foot. When they were far enough from their cars, he peeled onto the road, spinning out a bit in the ditch before straightening on the blacktop.

"Let me go!" Fisch hollered, struggling against his handcuffs. "I have nothing for you!"

His kidnapper looked over his shoulder and through the partition, flashing his bloodstained teeth at the cop in a mercilessly amused grin. He saw the Creeper's third nostril sucking in his scent, practically making him high as if his pheromones were an invisible marijuana cigarette.

"Let me go!" he shouted again, but the creature said nothing. He looked repeatedly into the mirrors, waiting for the other police to catch up, but he turned down another road and was gone before they could. Fisch watched, horrified, as the siren and lights were turned off. The Creeper rolled the window down, yanked his laptop, radios, and camera from their consoles and trashed them. Fisch kicked at the windows as he'd seen numerous drunken detainees try in the past. Now he knew how they must have felt.

At least all those prisoners were just going to jail. Fisch knew he was being driven to his death.

--

**Please review.** I welcome ideas and suggestions.

--

_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus  
Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


	14. Dead on Arrival

**The Truthful Lie  
****By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus**

**Chapter 13 — Dead on Arrival**

A SLAM FROM the rickety screen door caught the attention of Jarzi and her dog, both who wondered what was up. Jarzi looked up from her desk as the canine walked out the bedroom door to greet whoever had come in. The voice of one of her uncles summoned a groan and she got up to close the door.

"Great, just what I need right now," she muttered to herself. Neither of Jetseta's brothers were anything to get excited about, especially the one downstairs. Although he'd never hurt her physically, he had encouraged his sister to kill her up until she disappeared, and Jarzi was sure he still wanted to see her deceased. She decided to take a walk while the disturbed man visited, trying to keep his previous harsh words from filtering through her memory. Tucking the dagger that Mack had given her into her pillowcase, she wished for the millionth time that life would simply get better.

Jarzi put on a pair of sunglasses, opened the window, and leapt out, landing quietly on her feet without stumbling. By now, her wing was killing her and she began to think that perhaps part of the bullet was actually lodged in it. But, it would have to wait; if her uncle saw her, no doubt he'd come outside and start something.

Putting her hands in her pockets, she strolled up the middle of the road a ways to the threshold of a trail that the farmers kept neatly mowed and headed down it, listening to the sounds of nature calling around her. Birds chirped happily and went about searching for food as the grass and corn rustled with the breeze. She liked to come out here amongst nature, away from everybody else. Somehow, she felt like she was one with environment.

The nearby sound of rushing water slapping against eroded rock entered her ears and she took in its fresh scent. The river was just ahead; someplace she liked to go just to think and let her worries be cast away with the raging current. She sped up her pace to a light jog on the trail as it turned to sandy soil that was still littered with murky puddles from the last night's thunderstorm. No farmers were out due to the muddiness, so she worried little about being caught trespassing. She picked her way along the path's cleanest sections, breathing deep and slow as she approached the cliff of the river's gorge.

Her mind worked quickly as if trying to release its stress through her easy run, thoughts darting this way and that as adrenaline pushed through her veins. Wrestling with them, she tried listening only to the birds around her and the patter of her bare feet on the dirt. The curiosity in her brain refused to be drowned out by nature, even as the sound of the river became more and more aggressive. She wanted to work through the demanding questions and dark thoughts, but the more she tried the more steps she took backwards.

A warning crossed her mind, telling her with sharp intensity that she should have been smarter. About a great many things, she knew, from the time she was a child letting herself get beat up, to being cautious around Mack, to going outside alone without a weapon last night and ending up in the middle of the road. Bravado rippled through her as she realised that she was once again defenceless, and she refused to be a coward and go home. No more running, no more letting herself get hurt without a fight.

She practically beckoned the evil to come out and challenge her. What she would do, she had no idea, but fear would not consume her anymore. She looked around, squinting in the bright sunlight even through her black shades that screened the last stitch of emotion on her face. Rationale and prudence seemed to be blinded by her dark thoughts, just as the sunlight tried to do to her eyes.

When she reached the edge of the cliff, she knelt onto the ground and stared into the river. A sickly thin vein of water moved quickly about a half mile below, still carrying enough power to crush or drown anything it captured. The gorge was vastly unfilled from the lack of rain, but now that spring was here, it would soon be replenished from its starved state.

"Lo, girl," a velvety voice from behind her said.

Startled at first, she flinched and silently cursed herself for being so jumpy. She stood and whipped around, stepping safely from the edge; Rithyrn had materialised from out of nowhere. That infamous grin was plastered on his face, giving her an indication of who he was just by his teeth. Upon seeing him, her face cooled and hardened

"_You_!" Jarzi hissed, baring her own fangs at him. "Get away from me!"

"Now, now, calm down. I ain't here to hurt you."

"Then what do you want? To put another bullet in me?" She glared at him with the intensity of a killer and studied his strange features, trying not to let the fear build up. She didn't even have the time to wonder what he was.

"Oh no, nothing like that!" He stared at her, squinting, trying to see into her shielded eyes. Jarzi intended to remain locked in her world where nobody else was welcome. She studied him surreptitiously and felt her blood boil with rage.

"Whatever it is, I don't want it." Jarzi knew she couldn't intimidate this man, but being defensive wasn't an option here. The man appeared to be at least seven feet tall, and that alone was enough to send shivers through her. It was only intensified when he lifted his chin, revealing a half-rotted out trachea with dangling veins on each side. She cringed and wondered what else was hidden under his black robes, but in the long run, decided to not stick around to find out.

"Sure you do. Sorries now, Lassie, I _really_ didn't mean to hurt you. I'm just passing through, minding my business. Got a little hungry, is all, 'n I didn't know what you was 'til I was up close. Now that I seen you 'n all, I just been a little curious. Haven't seen one of you in a long time. And, goodie! Now I've found you."

Jarzi wasn't buying it. "Great, now you've seen me. Get out." She thought of Mack for a moment, remembering how he had told her to keep away from this man. He'd never given a name, but he hated this thing, whatever he was, that was standing just feet away from her. When she'd seen his contorted face earlier in the day, she knew that Mack wanted to rip this white creature to pieces. Her malice was beginning to concoct itself into the same desires.

"I can't just walk away without my sincere apologies," Rithyrn said, his smile faltering as if too painful to maintain. "May I suggest a peace offering?"

"Get away from me!" Jarzi growled.

"You don't mean that," Rithyrn snapped, trying to keep his childish temper in line.

Jarzi turned and walked toward the end of the cliff with hands knotted into fists, her wings hunched, and her teeth still clenched and ready to tear through anything that came within range.

"Wait!" Rithyrn took a few steps forward, putting the same distance back between them as Jarzi turned around again, her feet at the very edge of solid ground. "I've got something. I just wouldn't feel right walking away without giving it to you!"

Jarzi felt something besides the anxiety and rage growing inside her. It felt powerful, like a deadly lust to kill fixed by glue with a need to do good, to protect, to set things right. She trembled slightly and let the mysterious potential push against her instinctual fear, throwing it aside as if it didn't even exist.

It travelled down her spine, through her nerves and into her waiting muscles, urging her to attack and send the demon back to where it came.

"I don't want it!" she snarled, letting some of this weakly established power leak into her voice. She breathed deep, wondering about just what was crawling through her, where it had come from. It felt primal, unrefined, and terrifying—all predator and murderous—without one stitch of evil connected to it. She didn't understand, even as it commanded her to use it.

Rithyrn was quick to pick up on it. He loved that power; something he had stolen from her brother before it even had time to mature. He'd cleaned it of any good, letting it dissociate into meaningless, inoperative particles. Now that he had the boy's soul, he wanted his sister's as well.

"Oh, but this is good stuff." He looked down and opened a grey rubber bag that was strapped over his shoulder like a purse and pulled a piece of bloody meat from it. The same tactic had worked with her brother, and every other carnivorous creature he claimed ownership over, and didn't doubt for a nanosecond that it would work here as well. Dangling it like he would a pouch of white lightning, he grinned wide at Jarzi's instant reaction to the temptation.

Jarzi bit her lip, her angry appearance instantly shattered. "I just want to be left alone, all right?"

"Come on, Lassie! What else do you have to do? This place sucks, and don't you go 'n tell me it don't. Ain't nothing else to eat around here!" He was stalling now, trying to make excuses to hold the meat before her. "I know a place in the city where you can find tons of this. Just try it. It's so tasty; you'll be hooked for good. You've heard of cocaine being addictive? Wait 'til you taste this here meat. It'll put that animal shit you eat to shame."

"I'm not hungry."

Rithyrn practically burst out laughing. "Whatever. I know you want it. You're mentally thrashing, trying to calm that hunger. I've seen it in every last one of you. Your hunger controls you. Why don't you just shut it up for a bit?"

"No." He was right, as much as Jarzi hated to admit it. Her hunger was an inherited disease, no matter how she looked at it. It was welling up, battling with that newfound power that was threatening to break through the prison that tried to hold it in. Afraid of what it may be, she struggled to keep control of herself.

"What, you think it's poison or something?" He nipped at the human venison, whether to tempt her further or show her that it was truly edible, she couldn't tell.

"I don't know who you think you are—"

"We got off to a bad start," he quickly admitted, letting the smirk loosen again. "The name's Rithyrn. Eat this meat as my peace offering, and our issues shall be settled. I got plenty here, too! Fresh off the bone!"

Jarzi tried to ignore her body's unnatural need for the food. Her stomach snarled at her, acting as if it had been starved for months and threatening to send her keeling over in pain. Her heart raced, sending adrenaline-filled blood pounding through her veins. The frightening, new power seemed to feed off of it, ready to unleash at the first opportunity that arose.

"No," she snapped again, firmly, keeping her focus as best she could. The smell intoxicated her, luring her in.

Rithyrn saw Jarzi glance quickly into the gorge and stepped closer.

"What's it going to be, Missy?"

With all the strange feelings, Jarzi felt terribly empty. Her promise to face the evil fell apart quickly, giving in. She wanted that food so badly she could practically taste it already, and her jaws were salivating with anticipation. Clenching her eyelids shut, she shook her head in confusion, feeling nothing more than the need to capitulate.

_What the hell? It can't be that bad..._

Eyes still shut, she heard the devil walk up to her and give her nose a more powerful dose of the steak dangling from his fingers. On the edge of a hunger so disgusting and forceful that she couldn't even begin to describe it, she opened her eyes and saw his strange, red irises burning with the intensity of a forest fire. Rithyrn stared into her, through her, seeking something that seemed to have no existence. She felt his magic, white-hot and capable of any evil, unburdened by morality or reason.

"Come on now, open your mouth."

The raging power broke through then, shattering the restraints she had forged to keep it from doing so. There was no helping it, not in this battle of weaknesses and strengths that mysteriously seemed to ally themselves within her mind. Her hands were thrown forward by the invisible force, yanking her body along with it as it catapulted into Rithyrn's bony chest, sending him stumbling backwards several feet. Jarzi blinked when Rithyrn's coat caught on fire. She didn't understand what had happened; she had done nothing physical to throw him. Now, his jacket and rotten insides were lit up by a white, blazing fire as the demon smacked at it, cussing with repulsion in words that clearly didn't belong to Earth.

There was nothing in her hands when she looked at them. They were the same as they always had been, and the trembling had stopped. She felt the bizarre energy die down and harbour itself somewhere within her. It kept its presence known, ready to unleash should the predator threaten her again. But Rithyrn kept staggering around in his spot, struggling to slap the white flames with his hands and tail. She stood transfixed, eyes wide and staring.

Finally the pale creature snuffed out the rest of the flames, which didn't seem like much to begin with. He looked frail and sick to her, but it was a ploy that only the weak-minded would fall for. The evil power that she felt from him made her feel like puking; it was volatile and beyond revolting. He just stood there, fingers spread wide and ready to snatch anything within reach. His teeth clenched with rage as he saw what remained of his rotted organs and tattered robes.

Jarzi saw her chance to escape. She looked into the gorge, then back at Rithyrn who was still busy taking in what had happened to him. Besides his toasted flesh, there was nothing wrong with him. He'd regenerate them, or use some kind of magic to fix them. She leaned back as he started cussing again, letting gravity yank her down in its grip. She opened her wings silently and glided through the gorge, hoping that the demon wouldn't follow her again.

**--**

"Hey, slow down. There's a cop sitting at the gas station up there."

"Damnit," a miserable voice cursed. He pressed the brakes, just enough to try and trick the cop into thinking he hadn't been doing anything wrong. Braking too quickly would have given his slight speeding away, but he knew the radar gun was probably pointed straight at him anyways. Taking a deep breath, he passed the idling officer and watched as the lights of his car mirrored on the interceptor's chrome.

It was no use. The cop drove out of the parking lot and lit up the emergency flashers.

"Fucking ass!" the teenager snapped as he jerked his car to the side of the road. "I hate these damn pricks!"

"Be quiet!" the girl beside him hissed. She turned to glance through the rear window and saw the officer stepping out of his car. "I told you, if you keep driving the way you do, you're going to get your ass pulled over. Well, serves you right."

"Shut up, Allison."

The blonde adolescent rolled the window down and listened to his engine's patient rumbling. The policeman walked up and placed his gloved hands on the window frame, leaning down slightly. The boy kept his head down, heart racing with nervousness.

"License and registration, please." The voice was soft spoken but serious. Allison remained silent, resting her elbow on the door while looking away. The night was chilly but calm and the crickets quietly called to each other in a relaxing song. Fumbling, her companion pulled his wallet from the rear pocket of his jeans and handed his license to the officer. Allison barely paid attention as he went through a pile of wrinkled papers to find his registration and car insurance cards in the glove box.

"Here," he said, handing the information to the man in uniform. He waited for the officer to walk away before relaxing.

"Hope he just gives you a ticket," Allison said.

"I _hope_ he lets me off with a warning. I was only pushing five over the limit."

"Yeah, well cops can be dicks. I got pulled over on the thruway when I was 16 because I was doing 70 in a 65!"

"Pfft. God, this sucks."

"Eh, get over it. Everyone gets a ticket at least once in their life. You don't got a record."

"Hey, look."

Allison turned to look at him and found him staring in his rear-view mirror. She twisted in her seat, not knowing what to expect. Through the back window, she saw the cop's silhouette, black and menacing in the sheriff car's bright lights. The red and blue fell over him in spinning, perfect patterns. His back was to them, his head down, and his shoulders hunched. It appeared as if he was holding the paperwork up to his nose.

"What's that on his back?" the teen asked, pointing.

"I think it's a backpack of some sort? I dunno, looks weird." Even with the interchanging colours passing over his muscular body, he remained black and mysterious before them. The Creeper's wings were tucked so tightly against his back that they would have never guessed what they were.

"What's he doing?"

"He's certainly not running your license."

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"Me, too."

Reaching over, the boy rolled up the window and clicked the lock key, keeping his eyes locked on the mirror. "Look at his hair. Look!"

"Oh, now that's really professional!" Allison exclaimed, contorting her face in disgust. "I thought the police were supposed to look groomed. He should go join a biker gang with a tail like that."

Her buddy muffled a laugh into his hand, then straightened when the cop stalked back to his car and knocked heatedly on the window. He cracked the window just a smidge and felt the cool night's air seep into the car.

"Step out of the car," the officer ordered.

He shot a worried glance at Allison, who was still knelt in her seat, frozen. Her dark hair fell around her light face, seeming to emphasise how worried she was. Her eyes silently pled with him to keep his hands on that steering wheel and drive off.

Knowing he'd be put under arrest if he followed his instincts to flee, he took a deep breath and opened the door. He stepped onto the gravelly pavement and stood in the still, cold darkness. He hunched into his leather coat for warmth, taking note of the greying clouds in the black sky and the bitter nip from the breeze. Head held low, he felt embarrassed and worried while scuffing his boot against the tiny stones beneath them.

"What did I do, officer?" he asked quietly.

"I've been looking for somebody who fits your description," the voice replied flatly.

"Well you have the wrong—" he started, looking up at what he naturally expected to be a human. "What the hell are you supposed to be? Is this Halloween?"

The Creeper snickered, looking at him with bloodshot eyes. To the teen, they looked like they had undergone some sort of stress or irritation. He blinked and realised what the mysterious object on the creature's back really was. Silence formed around him. This neighbourhood that he was so new to, full of grand homes and rich people, had the feel of a graveyard. The street, which usually was bustling with activity, was deserted.

Absentmindedly, the boy backed up. Unsure if what he was looking at was even real, he didn't know how to react. Allison opened the passenger door and removed herself from the car.

"Hello!" she shouted at him. "Kevin! What are you doing?"

"Look."

Allison's eyes followed her companion's hand, which was pointing at the demonic cop's face. She went wide eyed and froze, her mouth hanging open slightly. The grey man sniffed the air in her direction, imitating a hungry wolf looking for prey.

Finding her nerve, Allison bolted back into the car. "Come on, Kevin! Let's get out of here!" she called after shutting the passenger side door. He scuffed to get his feet in motion and headed for the door handle, but the creature took a few calm steps forward and grabbed him before he could get it open.

"HELP!" he shouted, looking around. A house was off in the distance with a single light on, but nobody could hear him. "Help!" he called again, his voice weakening as he was pulled backwards against his will.

"Kevin!" Allison was shouting. "Get in the car, Kevin!"

Kevin struggled, but it was no use. The creature dragged him over to the police car and slammed him against it as he opened the back door. He felt his back and neck crack as he was shoved into the door, kicking and squirming for his life.

The door closed and he watched the Creeper stalk over to his small sedan. He heard Allison screaming odiously, but her words were well muffled. He watched the monster pry at the car door, trying to get in, but Allison sped away. The car pulled him a few steps as the gas rushed quickly through the engine's bowels and lost him when he couldn't keep up. He ran after her for a while, disappearing into the darkness.

Kevin tried to catch his breath. He felt his chest heaving with an overbearing fear and searched for a way to get out. His body ran in survival mode, not worrying about Allison or destroying the police car. He slammed his feet wildly at the partition, but the well nailed steel refused to budge.

"That won't help."

The teenager stopped kicking and looked beside him. He had been so obsessed with escaping that he hadn't even noticed the other man in the car, who sat with his face slumped against the window, forehead pressed against it so he couldn't be seen. The only clothes on his body were a pair of boxers and socks. His untied dress shoes were tossed on the floor, waiting to be put back on his feet. Behind his back, a pair of handcuffs kept his hands in a safe position.

"Fight all you want," the man croaked in a sick, gravelly voice. "You can't kill it. I tried. Took the shots like they were nothing."

"What the hell is going on?!" Kevin shouted.

Kevin went cold and hot in swift succession, wanting to get the hell out of there as quickly as he could. Furious, he struck the partition again, hoping it would give in and crack. But he knew it was too late, that he wouldn't get out, and that he was trapped as surely as if the man beside him was the terrorist lurking outside.

He turned to look at the man, who just sat there silently. Realisation sunk in like the Titanic in the ocean.

"You're the real cop, aren't you?" he asked.

"I was," Tyler Fisch said, and turned to face him.

Kevin froze. The deputy sheriff wasn't just blind; his eyes had been plucked right out their sockets, and what was once his eyelids were torn pieces of flesh that hung as bloody strips over the black, clotted holes. Tears of scarlet were dried and stuck to his skin in crisscrossing rivers. What remained of his lachrymal glands worked in overdrive, throwing tears out like miniature geysers, as if it would do any good.

"Where is it?" the deputy asked. Kevin wondered how this man could remain so disciplined and composed. Perhaps he was in a state or shock. Perhaps he had come to accept that he was about to die, and was ready to meet his creator. Perhaps he had just flat out lost it.

"I...I don't know. He took off after my ex-girlfriend when she drove away up there." He clenched his fists, instantly livid with Allison for having driven away, leaving him to defend himself with this eyeless police officer.

"It'll be back," Fisch whined. "Pray it kills you! Pray it gets it over with quickly! You don't want to go through this."

"Hey!" Kevin snapped. "Stop being so pessimistic! You've already given up?"

"That's the Creeper!" Fisch shouted, his voice suddenly terrified and loaded with panic. "It's a demon, or something! It'll eat your guts and stick you up on the ceiling!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?!" Kevin yelled, raising his voice to its loudest, most irritated state.

"Haven't you heard the local stories?"

Kevin stared at the eyeless man. He was so filled with disbelief and fear that he couldn't hear himself think. First that demonic man had shown up, playing dress-up like it was Halloween. Now, he was sitting in the back of a police interceptor with an unseeing sheriff's deputy that had been stripped of all decorum. What was next?

"No! I'm from Florida!"

"Well, it's there. I didn't believe in it, but...but...it's real."

Kevin tried to drown out the cop's incessant rambling as he began kicking on the door's window. With enough force, he thought he could push it out. Adrenaline fuelled him, giving his muscles the extra jolt they needed to break free. He almost had the window, felt it loosening in its mechanical cradle when the door whipped open and he was pulled into the dark by his foot. His face came in contact with wet pavement and felt a dead weight on top of him.

The cop was hollering in some vain attempt to be distracting. Kevin couldn't make out what it was over the obsessive snorting he felt in his hair. He couldn't do anything to stop whatever held him down. His chemical fuel dropped to empty, letting him know with a cold certainty that he was completely helpless. He wanted to scream but he couldn't. Tears seeped from his eyes and he whimpered pathetically into the asphalt.

Then, just like that, it was over. The teen's neck was twisted and hyper-extended. The police officer heard the sickening crack as vertebrae first smashed together, then tore apart. He tried to squirm out of the car, to get anywhere where he couldn't hear anymore, but lacking vision was something he had no experience in.

He had no choice but to listen to the Creeper tear the boy's body to shreds. Eventually, he found the door and staggered out, getting as far as the ditch before he fell in. Cold, muddy water splashed into the bloody pits in his face, stinging like a million bees inside his head. With arms tied behind his back, he thrashed in the trench water, splashing in frantic, eager bursts that sprayed it everywhere. He couldn't hear the grey fiend anymore, but he knew where he was.

It picked him up by the back of his neck after some time. He tried to assume that the creature had been eating, but he didn't really want to know. He hoped he'd kill him, just get it over with and be done. A car swept out of the darkness, hit a puddle and threw a fresh breeze of stagnant rain water on his face. Some of the murky liquid settled in his empty ocular cavities, summoning more painful shrieks and a fresh flow of burgundy blood. The strange feeling of effervescence tingled through his brain. His mouth quivered so violently that he couldn't even close it. Exhausted, the once respected leader collapsed.

Nothing seemed to work as he felt teeth digging into his trembling flesh. Compared to having his eyes pried out by sharp, jagged talons, it wasn't all the bad. His body had gone numb, even as his nerves were severed and muscle fibres stretched until their bearings snapped. Eventually it just gave out completely and he felt his spirit separate from his body before it was even dead.

"That's quite endearing."

The foreign words told the Creeper who it was. The voice had that permanent snicker reverberating through it and he was sure the infamous Joker grin would be set up to go along with it. He turned, giving the most spiteful expression he could muster. Blood was leaking from his mouth, hanging in two long strands like the saliva of a panting mastiff to emphasise just how annoyed he was.

"And what would that be, Rithyrn?" he asked in his native language.

"That I'd find you out here, wearing a police uniform. Paradoxical, wouldn't you say? You're one of the most brutal serial killers on the planet, with the blood of thousands on your hands. Yet you're a gargoyle, a sworn guardian to those you eat, and you're dressed as a police officer to trick people. I thought I smelled a pig on my way over here. Too bad you've already eaten all the bacon."

Mack bent over and wiggled an ulna out of its joints. He cracked the epiphysis off with his jaws and swallowed it. "Get to the point, Rithyrn."

"You know why I'm here." His face straightened, becoming etched with seriousness. "You lied to me. I don't appreciate being lied to. You didn't think you would get away with it forever, did you?"

"No." He casually sucked the marrow from the bone.

"Give me what I want, what I asked for, and I'll go away. For good. You'll never see or hear from me again."

"I can't do that, Rithyrn."

A car eased on the brakes to pass the interceptor, its lights still flashing. The driver caught sight of the infernal duo and the car burst away with a puff of exhaust smoke.

"Your daughter is quite powerful," Rithyrn observed. "Look at what she did to me." He pulled his wrinkled robe away from his putrid, blackened organs that throbbed jadedly beneath yellowed ribs. Each time his two hearts tried to palpitate, they drizzled what was supposed to be blood onto his already mucky pants. "I wonder who taught her how to use that power. Surely, she couldn't have learned it on her own." He eyed his former crony with an inquisitive expression, grinning all the while.

"I had nothing to do with it." He couldn't believe that Rithyrn had the temerity to go after the girl, yet again.

"Oh, really?" Now Rithyrn was beginning to sound annoyed.

"Serves you right."

"Haha! Come on now, don't give me trouble. Hand her over, and I'll leave. _Forever._"

"I already told you—No."

"Why not? I can think of a few things I'd like to do with her pretty black hide!"

"You won't be doing anything with her."

"Funny that you'd say that, actually." Rithyrn laughed. "You see, Mr. Serve and Protect, I knew from the beginning that you'd let that human side of you rule your actions. You're going down the same route that did your mother in. And, it's happened with you twice before. I just thought you might want to hear me say it, so while your guilt rots you from the inside out, you'll remember what you're getting yourself into."

The Creeper stood still and emotionless like a statue, glowering through him. He wasn't going to let the demon sense his feelings. There was no need to show any. There never had been. What was he thinking? That Rithyrn would just stand there and taunt him, then chicken out on his threats?

"In fact..." the demon started.

"You just can't manage to keep out of my life, can you?"

"What life? That's what I want to know. You don't have a life. You have nobody, no purpose, no meaningful existence whatsoever. You're what, four thousand years old? You're adrift of both purpose and direction with an uncertain future."

Mack took a deep breath, thinking of all the chances he had been given to drive Rithyrn right out of the picture. The easy way seemed so appealing at that moment, but it wasn't at all justifiable. If only that girl was human, doomed to die anyways when her time came, there would be no problem. But she wasn't, and what she'd endure should he just hand her over would probably be worse than his hibernation periods or the brutal torture his mother had gone through. No doubt in his mind, she still _was_ going through it.

All those years, he thought that Rithyrn had lost interest and had eventually forgotten the matter. Why had he waited so long? Or had this been part of his plan, after all?

"Why now, Rithyrn? Why sixteen years later?"

"Pfft," Rithyrn jeered, making a disgusted face. "I've got a full schedule, if you hadn't noticed over the last millennium. Passing through, I decided to deal with this unfinished business. You think it over!"

Rithyrn disappeared then, waving like a child as his figure faded and eventually washed away.

The sudden fear that perhaps Rithyrn would activate the sleeping cycles struck. That suffering was completely unbearable, yet there was no escape from it once it set in. Those years would feel like centuries, while the days spent eating seemed like mere minutes.

He sat down in a patch of clean grass and sat chewing the cartilage of the dead sheriff's deputy, feeling young again as it replenished inside his body. He remained there, eating and thinking the matter over for a while, letting his mind travel to places he only wished existed. He only came back to reality when he resolved to find a way to get rid of Rithyrn. He'd secured the chance. Xavier and Jarzi kept him awake with their magic, and as long as they were around, he could figure something out.

Still, he didn't know where to turn. Lacking any clue of what he was even up against, he was already as lost as the spirits of those he had just murdered. He didn't know of anyone out there who could help him even figure stuff out. No one would be willing, and nobody would even know what to do. Rithyrn was a special case in the annals of demonic immortals. He'd known him, distantly, for most of his life, but not the first thing about him that held any significance.

He then thought of the wise elders he had grown up around; those men and women full of wisdom and knowledge. If they were here, would they be able to tell him what he ought to do? Would they say that fate works in odd ways and that answers are never where you expect them to be? Of course they would. There would be a lot of digging, both for knowledge, helpful memories, people who had answers, and courage.

The dead deputy was far too mutilated to be stuck up on a wall. He wouldn't have time to fix him up, anyways. So he stood and left him there, half-eaten, for the wolves to pick at. He returned to the police car, steered it in the opposite direction it was facing, and headed east.

--

**Please review. **I welcome ideas and suggestions.

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_**The Truthful Lie**_ copyright © **25 June 2005** by _**Mistress of Baneful Terminus  
Jeepers Creepers **_copyright © _**Victor Salva**_


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